Did the Romney campaign believe they would win at the end

[DS0816]

Or was it just fake confidence?

Essentially you're asking if there was anyone in the Romney/Ryan campaign with any mathematical skills and the brains to make sense of numbers.

I'll guess there was at least one person.

Paul Ryan seemed to disappear weeks before Election Day. That would indicate something.

[DS0816]

A presidential candidate who loses this belief is not doing his job. His advisors may figure out all is toast - that is their job. But the candidate himself MUST be convinced he is winning.

Not true. Campaigning for the presidency of the United States is not a religious experience of "belief." Now if you really mean the word attitude, you can go with that. But, at the same time, it's not a requirement. In fact, if you're a presidential candidate who is attempting to unseat an incumbent president your top priority is to make the case to persuade the county to elect you instead. Following the Republicans' first participating presidential election of 1856, this turned out to be with each of Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. Mitt Romney, like many before him, obviously failed.