Trump believes he’s winning the race
PALM BEACH, Fla. — With election day just 15 days off, Donald Trump fought to preserve his narrow path to the U.S. presidency in must-win Florida on Monday.
Trump’s team concedes both publicly and privately that his electoral map is becoming bleak. And GOP leaders are growing increasingly worried that his weak standing jeopardizes vulnerable Republican Senate candidates in battlegrounds like Florida, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
In public, the New York billionaire is having none of that talk. He lashed out at the media Monday for promoting “phoney polls” during a round table discussion with Florida farmers gathered next to a local pumpkin patch.
“We’re winning this race. I really believe we are winning,” Trump told the farmers, baskets of gourds, bales of hay and corn stalks behind him.
The day before, Trump told a Florida TV station that the First Amendment to the Constitution may give the press too much freedom. He suggested that America adopt a system like England’s, which makes it easier to sue the media.
“England has a system where if they are wrong, things happen,” Trump told Miami’s CBS4.
Monday was the second day of Trump’s three-day swing in Florida, which is essential to his White House hopes. There is no scenario in which he can lose Florida and win the 270 electoral votes needed to become president, based on current polling. Even if he wins the toss-up state, his path to 270 requires victories in several more swing states, including North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada.
The Trump campaign acknowledged its challenge in a Monday fundraising e-mail, conceding that victories even in those swing states wouldn’t be enough.
“Polls show us close in New Hampshire, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. Winning just any one of those states would lead us to victory,” the campaign wrote, citing three states where Trump is trailing Hillary Clinton by significant margins in recent polls.
Clinton’s running mate, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, was making two campaign stops in Florida on Monday. Clinton plans to visit Tuesday and Wednesday.