Trump adviser: President will likely trail into Election Day, but still win
September 13, 2020
A senior Trump campaign adviser said Sunday he believes it's likely the president will trail in the polls and mail-in voting requests going into Election Day but come from behind to win, similar to his victory in 2016.
“I would concede that it's probably going to be a similar scenario where, when we look back retrospectively we will probably see that the president was down into Election Day, and then won Election Day itself by an incredibly wide margin,” senior Trump campaign adviser Steve Cortes said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Cortes’ remarks come as Democrats outpace Republicans in mail-in ballot requests, especially in key battleground states. A new Fox News national poll shows Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden winning 71 percent of likely voters who said they planned to vote by mail.
Cortes suggested more Democrats requesting ballots didn't necessarily indicate they would vote for Biden, but said regardless Donald Trump would likely close the gap on Nov. 3.
The president has repeatedly attacked mail-in voting, claiming without evidence that it could lead to more instances of ballot fraud.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel also predicted Trump would prevail, despite Democrats' lead in fundraising.
"I feel very good about the investment that the RNC's put in place, and I feel very confident in the plan that the campaign has," she said. "The plan, the campaign will have the money and it has the strategy to win."
On Fox, Cortes explained his belief in an Election Day win for Trump stemmed in large part from the gap in enthusiasm between Biden and Trump supporters.
Trump has continued to lead Biden in enthusiasm, though the new Fox poll indicated Biden may be bridging that divide: 43 percent of likely Biden voters said they were enthusiastic about voting for Biden, up 12 points from Fox’s June poll.
The Fox News poll of 1,191 likely voters was conducted Sept. 7-10 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
