Trump has a on again/off again relationship with the polls, on one hand constantly tweeting about favorable polls, but dismissing unfavorable polls as part of the dishonest media’s crooked agenda. Prior to the FBI announcing that there were again looking into some emails, when Clinton was up 7 to 8 points nationally, Trump had almost completely stopped tweeting polls. Those polls were so bad for Trump that they seemed to make it through his egotism and register with the candidate.

Well, that’s all out the window now that Trump seems to be within striking distance in some battleground states. Trump is back to loving polls, and telling his supporters not to pay too much attention as they may think that they’ve got it in the bag.

“The polls have just come up. We’re way up in Florida,” Trump told his ecstatic supporters in Miami, FL yesterday. “I shouldn’t say that because I want you to go vote. OK, ready? We’re gonna pretend we’re down. We’re down. Pretend, right? We’ll pretend we’re down…Nah, we gotta win. We gotta win big. We gotta beat her. Gotta beat her. We’re up in Ohio. We’re up in Iowa. We’re up in North Carolina. I think we’re doing great in Pennsylvania, from what I hear. Folks, you’re gonna be so proud.”

While Trump has been gaining in the polls and the race is definitely tightening, to say that he is far enough ahead that they have to “pretend we’re losing” isn’t based in reality, especially in Florida.

According to polls guru Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight and the dozens of high quality polls that they aggregate, Donald Trump is now 0.1% ahead in Florida. He is 2.4% up in Ohio. Trump is up 3.4% in Iowa. Trump is up 0.1% in North Carolina. Trump is down 3.8% in Pennsylvania, and while not “great,” it is a lot better than he has been doing in this “tipping point” state.

While technically correct, all of those states land in the toss up category and Hillary Clinton has had the worst week in politics since we learned where Donald Trump likes to grab women.

This is quite a turn from the truculent, defiant and losing Donald Trump of a few weeks ago, angrily shouting that the election is fixed and the media rigged against him. Unfortunately, Donald Trump’s national picture doesn’t look nearly as rosy. FiveThirtyEight still puts Hillary Clinton’s chances at better than 2 to 1, though that is down from a high of 6 to 1.

Trump has gained some ground, it is true. But even if Trump won every one of those states except Pennsylvania he would still be losing by more than 50 electoral college votes, 293 to 243. Trump was essentially telling his supporters that their vote was worthless in a rigged election, and now he’s telling them to make sure to vote as they’re not winning by enough yet. This could be an election that is won or lost based on turnout, and Trump’s wishy washy faith in our political system definitely gives his supporters a conflicting and confusing message.

Sources:

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-tells-supporters-pretend-slighty-losing-vote-article-1.2855790
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-tells-florida-supporters-to-pretend-we-re-down-799317059856