Donald Trump’s new role: the noble underdog
His odds might be worsening—but now, anything is possible.
That’s the latest theme emanating from the campaign of the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has faltered badly in polls and prediction markets the last several weeks. Many forecasters now give him just a 10% to 15% chance of winning on Nov. 8.
“To me, that’s still enough,” Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci tells Yahoo Finance in the video above. “There are a lot of vagaries that can happen between now and Election Day. You can’t rule him out entirely.”
Since summer, Trump supporters have compared his rogue bid for the White House to the “Brexit” vote in the United Kingdom, the June referendum in which Brits voted to leave the European Union. Numerous polls had mistakenly predicted the vote would fail. Instead, Brits voted to reject an economic arrangement widely seen as benefiting elites more than anybody else.
Trump has tumbled in the polls since mid-September, when he was nearly even with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Scaramucci cites two other instances in which polls predicted the wrong outcome in a political race: David Cameron’s election as British prime minister in 2015, when his Conservative Party did much better than polls predicted, and Tom Bradley’s defeat in the contest for California governor all the way back in 1982, despite exit polls suggesting he would win.
Scaramucci, co-founder of the investment firm SkyBridge Capital and a key member of Trump’s fundraising team, says donations are still coming in, many being funneled to the Republican National Committee to help GOP candidates in House and Senate races. Some GOP strategists fear that if Trump loses big, it will help Democrats take control of the Senate and even, in a long shot, the House. “We are never going to catch Secretary Clinton on her fundraising,” Scaramucci says, returning to the underdog theme. “She has 40 years’ experience fundraising. But we do have enough money to compete.”
If Trump does lose, he may still end up leaving a lasting mark on Washington politics. Trump, of course, has relentlessly bashed trade deals that, he says, have sent millions of middle-class American jobs overseas. With Trump gaining traction with voters on the issue, Clinton recently said she would appoint a “trade prosecutor” to scrutinize trade deals and pinpoint abuses.
“Mr. Trump has made people aware that when we talk about free trade, it is an unbalanced system,” Scaramucci says. “If she ends up winning the presidency … and she needs help on the trade stuff, we’ve done a ton of research on it.“ Team Trump probably shouldn’t stay up late waiting for that call.
Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
