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Trump rejects ‘phony’ polls, insists ‘we are winning’

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke during a meeting today with local farmers at Bedners Farm Fresh Market, in Boynton Beach, Fla.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

Protesters shouted as a Trump supporter walked past after a campaign event with Republican vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. today.

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. » A defiant Donald Trump blamed his campaign struggles on “phony polls” from the “disgusting” media today, fighting to energize his most loyal supporters as his path to the presidency shrinks.

With just 14 days until the election, the Republican nominee campaigned in battleground Florida as his team conceded publicly as well as privately that crucial Pennsylvania may be slipping away to Democrat Hillary Clinton. That would leave him only a razor-thin pathway to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House on Nov. 8.

Despite continued difficulties with women and minorities, Trump refuses to soften his message in the campaign’s final days to broaden his coalition. Yet he offered an optimistic front in the midst of a three-day tour through Florida as thousands began voting there in person.

“I believe we’re actually winning,” Trump declared during a round table discussion with farmers gathered next to a local pumpkin patch.

A day after suggesting the First Amendment to the Constitution may give journalists too much freedom, he insisted that the media are promoting biased polls to discourage his supporters from voting.

“The media isn’t just against me. They’re against all of you,” Trump told cheering supporters later in St. Augustine. “They’re against what we represent.”

In more bad news for Trump, a new poll shows young voters turning to Clinton now that the race has settled down to two main candidates. Clinton now leads among likely voters 18 to 30 years in age by 60 percent to 19 percent, according to a new GenForward survey.

Young black voters already were solidly in her corner, and now young whites are moving her way, according to the survey by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

With Trump on the defensive, Democrat Clinton worked to slam the door on his candidacy in swing state New Hampshire while eyeing a possible Democratic majority in the Senate.

The former secretary of state campaigned alongside New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, who is running for the Senate, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was merciless as she seized on recent revelations of Trump’s predatory sexual language and several allegations of sexual assault.

“He thinks that because he has a mouth full of Tic Tacs, he can force himself on any woman within groping distance,” Warren charged. “I’ve got news for you Donald: Women have had it with guys like you.”

Trump has denied all of a recent allegations, and he addressed a new one today in an interview with WGIR radio in New Hampshire.

He called the accusations “total fiction” and lashed out at former adult film performer Jessica Drake, who said Saturday that he had grabbed and kissed her without permission and offered her money to visit his hotel room a decade ago.

“One said, ‘He grabbed me on the arm.’ And she’s a porn star,” Trump said. He added, “Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.”

With Election Day two weeks away, Trump’s electoral map looks bleak.

The Republican National Committee ignored him altogether in mailers to New Hampshire voters set to be distributed later this week, according to material obtained by The Associated Press. The mail focuses instead on Clinton’s credibility, featuring a picture of her and former President Bill Clinton and the words, “No More of The Lying Clintons.”

Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway outlined a path to 270 electoral votes on Sunday that banks on victories in Florida, Ohio, Iowa and North Carolina along with New Hampshire and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. Assuming Trump wins all of those — and he currently trails in some — he would earn the exact number of electoral votes needed to win the presidency and no more.

Noticeably absent from the list was Pennsylvania, a state that a top adviser privately conceded was slipping away despite Trump’s aggressive courtship of the state’s white working-class voters. The adviser spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.

Florida was largely the focus today as in-person early voting began across 50 counties, including the state’s largest: Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach. Remaining counties will start in the coming week.

Early voting by mail has been underway for weeks. Nearly 1.2 million voters in Florida have already mailed in ballots.

Clinton plans to visit Tuesday and Wednesday, while her running mate, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, was making two Florida appearances today. He took a shot at Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio in the first, a reminder that Clinton’s team is fighting to retake a Senate majority.

Kaine noted that Rubio previously called Trump a dangerous “con artist,” though the senator currently supports him.

Democrats would take the Senate majority if they pick up four seats and Clinton wins the White House.

Trump’s difficulties are evident in this week’s travel plans, which include a possible stop in Arizona. A Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t won there in 20 years, yet polls show Trump in a close race.

Republicans look worse in New Hampshire, a state Trump must win in the scenario his campaign manager outlined.

“Women voters can sway elections here,” said Republican strategist Ryan Williams. “And he’s doing nothing to reach out to them.”

AP writers Ken Thomas in Manchester, New Hampshire, Kathleen Ronayne in Miami, Tom Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Laurie Kellman and Emily Swanson in Washington contributed.

6 responses to “Trump rejects ‘phony’ polls, insists ‘we are winning’”

  1. paniolo says:

    blah, blah, blah…

  2. copperwire9 says:

    Hmmph!

    Yesterday he was acknowledging he’s behind. Today, shockingly, he has a completely different story line.

  3. deepdiver311 says:

    here is why donald j trump going win
    it was just reported that he is leading illiary in the halloween mask face purchasing contest by 7%
    why is that important?
    every presidential election since 1970 the candidate with the most purchases has won the presidential election
    oh wow go donald, you rock!! imua

  4. klastri says:

    This isn’t surprising from someone who suffers from Mr. Trump’s multiple personality disorders. In his mind, he always wins, even after filing bankruptcy or after suffering some other major business failure. He is unable to admit that he fails. The great news is that his poll numbers have cratered and are getting worse every day. So he’s – of course – making up stories about large scale, in-person voting, which doesn’t exist. No matter, since he thinks it is so, and his supporters don’t know any better.

    His followers somehow cannot see the obvious – that Mr. Trump is profoundly mentally ill, and that he’s going to lose in a landslide.

    • sarge22 says:

      Michelle Obama’s Mom Will Get $160k For Life… Paid By Our Taxes

      This is the kind of graft and corruption that happens in places like Iraq and North Korea. Michelle Obama’s mom didn’t earn a pension that’s three times bigger than the average American family’s income.

      It seems that just like Barack, the rest of the Obama’s never had real jobs, and instead of live high on the hog off the backs of regular taxpaying Americans.

      Congress just announced the most outrageous waste of taxpayer money designed by Obama.

      First Grandma Marian Robinson, 79, will receive a lifetime 160K government pension when she leaves the White House next year, according to congressional budget statements.
      According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Mrs. Robinson earned the lifetime pension for “services rendered as full-time/in-home caregiver” for granddaughters Malia, 18, and Sasha, 15, during President Obama’s two terms in office.

      Michelle Obama’s mom got to live like a queen in the White House, but they are going to pay her $160,000 every year for the rest of her life for babysitting her own granddaughters?

      • klastri says:

        You’re lying, and you know that you’re lying.

        This story has been debunked after being published by an internet site that plants outlandish spoofs to see if anyone is gullible enough to believe them. Mrs. Robinson, of course, was never a government employee.

        Is it simply impossible for you to write truthfully?

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