Trump Wants People to Think He’s Losing

As Election Day creeps closer and closer, the pressure for each candidate increases. And Donald Trump’s newest strategy is to have his supporters “pretend we’re slightly losing.”

The concept behind this plan is primarily psychological. If people think Trump is losing and Clinton is winning, then a) Trump supporters are going to ensure that they vote to increase his support; and b) Clinton supporters might skip voting because they think she has a good chance of winning.

The question now is will that actually happen and work?

The ultimate goal of this strategy is to gain interest in his campaign in important states, like Florida, where the race is especially close between Trump and Clinton.

Florida is one of the states that Trump must win if he wants to secure the entire election.

Currently, Trump pretty much has to win almost every swing state in order to win the election. According to FiveThirtyEight, the five most important states for Trump to win are Iowa, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and Nevada.

If he loses these states, “he loses the election 95 percent of the time or more.” In other words, he has his work cut out for him or he stands no chance.

It is currently predicted that Clinton will receive about 70% of the votes, Trump receiving about 30%, and Johnson with less than .1%.

Clinton and Trump’s numbers seem to get closer and closer each day, but will Trump’s strategy to pretend he’s losing help him out in the long run? Since he needs to win basically every swing state, I would predict probably not.