I hear the words of the establishment coming out of Donald Trump supporters, just like I heard them from Mitt Romney supporters, and just like I heard them from John McCain supporters.
I’ve even heard them from Donald’s mouth personally.
“People should vote for me because I’m winning and I’m a winner,” he has continually said some semblance of over and over throughout his time on the trail.
He then cites a series of always national polls that show him leading in those polls that study opinion via calling people through landlines.
Ask yourself how many people do you know personally that have given up landlines.
When he declared he’d walk out of the debate this past week he sounded off as to his thoughts of how badly FoxNews would suffer in the ratings–because as Trump’s thinking went–he was the reason the debates had become so highly rated.
His assumption was calculating that when he left, the epic audience would as well.
His assumption further seemed to imply that his private event would outshine the debate.
And his assumption still asserted that being ahead in the polls in Iowa was enough to not have to work the state for the weekend–that he will merely jet into Des Moines
Monday night, accept the win, and jet right back out again.
Well hold your ears and cover your eyes Tumpsters because you’re about to have a very bad few seconds followed by an awful couple of days.
Because Trump lost, is losing, and will lose.
Does that make him electable?
He lost the hearts and minds of Iowans. From the minute he declared he was out of the final debate Iowans couldn’t make it to enough microphones to tell networks how disappointed they were. Many of them saying they had been leaning Trump but were firmly against him now. I have publicly speculated for a couple of days now that with his free fall, less than optimum organization in Iowa, and a surging Rubio effort being led by that candidate, The Donald could fall to third on Monday Night.
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He lost the debate. It was obvious the stage didn’t miss him and he was forced to absorb the things said on stage without any response.
He lost the opportunity to appear Presidential. The take my audience and go home mentality did not impress many.
He lost the ratings battle. FoxNews scored the second highest audience in their history.
Numbers even higher than the debate from the previous week. Meanwhile Trump trying to co-opt past Iowa winners, pretend to be doing something for charity (though the checks were all written to the Trump Foundation, and no information has been revealed as to how much of the 5 million Donald’s own people put up), and garnering the cameras of all the other networks scored just less than 2 million viewers nationwide. Fox scored nearly seven times that number and had a monstrous 8.4 share for the night.
He is losing the public opinion in Iowa. His team is trying to show that slipping from an eleven point lead in public opinion to five points isn’t a loss. As of this morning the Des Moines register has that number just under 5 and a model that turns out voters in three times the numbers of the biggest turnout on record and counts on Evangelicals to stay home in higher numbers than in 2012. Neither of these things are going to happen.
He is losing in head to head match-ups with Hillary. So his entire argument of “I don’t have to tell you my policy plans because I’m the one who can beat Hillary” is out the window.
Trump had already had his worst month of the campaign. He had an atrocious end of the month and did nothing but lose the final days of the final week.
He will be lucky to edge out Rubio in third place in Iowa at this point. And Teams Cruz and Rubio will raise lots of money and gain massive momentum heading into New Hampshire the following week.
The real downside about making your entire campaign about being a winner, is that in politics as in life, NOBODY wins everything–all the time.
And the question becomes what is your game plan when your are no longer the winner?
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