“Don’t think we are going to win,” Trump told a small (for him) crowd in New Hampshire last night. “No matter where you are, no matter how you feel, I don’t give a damn, you got to get out, you got to get out of bed and vote.” Trump has rarely shown any vulnerability during his pro-winners anti-losers presidential campaign. But since Iowa, he seems to be coming to terms with the reality that he could soon become a loser himself.
Trump didn’t even brag about his poll numbers last night. Iowa shocked him into the realization that a good ground game actually matters—one can’t win on red hats and Fox News Sunday phoners alone. Trump has not spent a lot of money on analyzing voters, resulting in a large number of enthusiastic volunteers wasting time calling people who support other candidates. Plus, the campaign is targeting people who don’t normally vote. The problem with depending on those people is they don’t normally vote.
Trump has even started showing that he is capable of non-positive emotions. He spoke to CNN last night about losing his brother to alcoholism, and while he didn’t linger on feelings of sadness and loss, he did credit his brother with helping him become the man he is today. He also said he was trying to be more “understated and statesman-like”—presumably still a politically incorrect statesman, of course.