Did Trump really think he had won on election night?

[EJ24]

Specifically when he gave this speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlmaKdbC6ZM

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think so; FL was really the only swing state with a large portion of data in by midnight, and it was looking strong for Trump, if not called by some networks. Heck, even half of Atlas thought Trump would win. My guess is Trump thought he would win until PA got within 30k or so.

[brucejoel99]

He knew he lost but continued to proclaim his victory - despite not having a shred of evidence proving as much - due to what I presume would be a combination of panic over inevitably looming civil & criminal charges & not wanting to look like a loser.

Of course, trying to prevent that latter aspect was inherently a self-fulfilling prophecy for him, because of course his desperate ordering of absurd legal challenges - on the off-chance that something might stick & thus allow the SCOTUS which he'd previously stacked to overturn the result of the otherwise democratically-held, free-&-fair election which he'd lost - served to make him look like nothing but the sorest of sore losers. Hell, by extension, even trying to prevent the former aspect from being a concern for him for another 4 years was in & of itself another self-fulfilling prophecy, because his actions further served to potentially open himself up to further civil & criminal liability.

In any event, he obviously didn't care about the negative impact that doing so would have on our democratic institutions because he's obviously never cared about the impact he's had on our institutions, so all I can say is thank god that the very judges & justices whom he appointed had no problem throwing out the bullsh*t which he'd sent them. The courts (not to mention, even Republican election bureaucracies across the country) truly proved themselves the bulwarks of our democracy, though we obviously never should've even had to have reached the point of their being such being necessary in the 1st place.

[Agonized-Statism]

At the time, I thought he was just setting himself up for 2024, but the storming made it seem like he really did believe all his rhetoric.

[ibagli]

I don't think he experiences truth or sincerity in a way that normal people would understand.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Of course he did, his margins were identical in MI, PA, AZ and WI, but Gary Johnson played spoiler in 2016, just like Nadar cost Gore NH and FL

[redjohn]

Yes. Trump's a con man, but what makes him such an effective con man is that he very much believes everything he says.

[Crumpets]

Absolutely. If a Dem partisan like me thought he had better than 50/50 odds for a few hours, Trump probably thought he had already won in a 50-state landslide pending the rest of the votes being counted.

[The Houstonian]

I don't think he experiences truth or sincerity in a way that normal people would understand.

Could you explain what you mean?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think if he did not know then he certainly knew within a day or two. I think it is also likely that he understood the possibility, which is why he started to lay the groundwork for the stolen election accusation months in advance as a cover for his ego and reputation as not being a loser.

[Motorcity]

No

The Trump campaign did think they were heading towards a victory most of the night since they were leading in Florida. But when FOX called Arizona and NE-2 around midnight along with early reports in MI/WI, they knew it was over around 2am.

[Alben Barkley]

Not after that Arizona call from Fox. By all accounts, that's when the panic set in.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I was resigned to him winning and even after the Arizona call, I thought it would similar to democrats flipping 2016 in terms of a consolation prize for the election.

[Alben Barkley]

I was resigned to him winning and even after the Arizona call, I thought it would similar to democrats flipping 2016 in terms of a consolation prize for the election.

Huh??? We didn't flip anything in 2016 that Obama hadn't won four years earlier anyway. Winning AZ for the first time in 20 years was a major sign that, indeed, the suburbs were trending heavily our way, and it did, indeed, turn out to predict that our gains in those areas were more than enough to win the election. That's why Trump's camp freaked out when they saw it, and Democrats in the know celebrated when we saw it. You can go all the way back in my post history to find proof that by 5 AM November 4, I correctly called the 306 map based solely on the information available at that time. And honestly, thank god for that AZ call. Not only for giving Dems a major boost after the FL disaster, but also for helping to blunt the credibility of Trump's conspiracy theory claims that it was being "stolen" from him. If the most conservative mainstream network around was writing his obituary, it was clear to anyone reasonable he was done that night.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I was resigned to him winning and even after the Arizona call, I thought it would similar to democrats flipping 2016 in terms of a consolation prize for the election.

Huh??? We didn't flip anything in 2016 that Obama hadn't won four years earlier anyway. Winning AZ for the first time in 20 years was a major sign that, indeed, the suburbs were trending heavily our way, and it did, indeed, turn out to predict that our gains in those areas were more than enough to win the election. That's why Trump's camp freaked out when they saw it, and Democrats in the know celebrated when we saw it. You can go all the way back in my post history to find proof that by 5 AM November 4, I correctly called the 306 map based solely on the information available at that time. And honestly, thank god for that AZ call. Not only for giving Dems a major boost after the FL disaster, but also for helping to blunt the credibility of Trump's conspiracy theory claims that it was being "stolen" from him. If the most conservative mainstream network around was writing his obituary, it was clear to anyone reasonable he was done that night.

Meant to say orange county

[Alben Barkley]

I was resigned to him winning and even after the Arizona call, I thought it would similar to democrats flipping 2016 in terms of a consolation prize for the election.

Huh??? We didn't flip anything in 2016 that Obama hadn't won four years earlier anyway. Winning AZ for the first time in 20 years was a major sign that, indeed, the suburbs were trending heavily our way, and it did, indeed, turn out to predict that our gains in those areas were more than enough to win the election. That's why Trump's camp freaked out when they saw it, and Democrats in the know celebrated when we saw it. You can go all the way back in my post history to find proof that by 5 AM November 4, I correctly called the 306 map based solely on the information available at that time. And honestly, thank god for that AZ call. Not only for giving Dems a major boost after the FL disaster, but also for helping to blunt the credibility of Trump's conspiracy theory claims that it was being "stolen" from him. If the most conservative mainstream network around was writing his obituary, it was clear to anyone reasonable he was done that night.

Meant to say orange county

OK, but OC flipping isn't even remotely comparable to AZ flipping!

[Non Swing Voter]

No, he came out swinging like a lunatic because he had much better/more precise internal numbers than the rest of us saw and he knew he was screwed.  I think he was genuinely surprised by Georgia though, which is why he really flipped out post election about Georgia most specifically.

[7,052,770]

I think so; FL was really the only swing state with a large portion of data in by midnight, and it was looking strong for Trump, if not called by some networks. Heck, even half of Atlas thought Trump would win. My guess is Trump thought he would win until PA got within 30k or so.

By the time Trump gave his speech at 2 AM or whenever it had been clear to basically everyone here for hours that Biden had won.

I was getting a little nervous myself in the early evening, but by 9 (Central), it was looking really good for Biden (in terms of "will he win?", not in terms of margin).

To answer the question, probably? He's a lunatic totally out of touch with reality, but I doubt anyone on his team thought he still had a real shot at that point.

[beesley]

No, he came out swinging like a lunatic because he had much better/more precise internal numbers than the rest of us saw and he knew he was screwed.  I think he was genuinely surprised by Georgia though, which is why he really flipped out post election about Georgia most specifically.

Also because Brian Kemp is a more 'interesting' and vulnerable target, which I think Trump likes. If he went for Wisconsin, Tony Evers would have had absolutely nothing to lose from doing what Kemp and Raffensperger did even more strongly. He also expects loyalty from every Republican of a vaguely Trump stripe, particularly those he effectively installed as Governor, so he could treat Kemp like a traitor, but he wouldn't have successfully done that with Ducey who is term-limited anyway.

[compucomp]

I think so; FL was really the only swing state with a large portion of data in by midnight, and it was looking strong for Trump, if not called by some networks. Heck, even half of Atlas thought Trump would win. My guess is Trump thought he would win until PA got within 30k or so.

By the time Trump gave his speech at 2 AM or whenever it had been clear to basically everyone here for hours that Biden had won.

I was getting a little nervous myself in the early evening, but by 9 (Central), it was looking really good for Biden (in terms of "will he win?", not in terms of margin).

I don't agree with this, when I went to sleep at 3AM Eastern all 3 of MI/WI/PA were still red and it was unclear how many absentee ballots were left. Most betting markets had Trump well favored at that moment (like 70-80%).

Now when I woke up the next morning at 9AM Wisconsin had flipped, Michigan was on the way to flipping, and we got better estimates of the number of outstanding absentee ballots that indicated PA would flip and GA had a good chance to flip. Then I felt good that Biden would win.

To the OP, Trump had convinced himself for a long time, even before the election, that the absentee ballots would be fraudulent. So of course he thought he had won.

[mileslunn]

Trump is not exactly the brightest and tends to see what he wants to see.  He saw he was up in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and that Ohio which was mostly counted he won by similar margin to 2016 so even if his campaign told him there was a risk he would lose those states, he probably convinced himself his lead was big enough and Biden had no chance of overcoming it.  With Arizona, his campaign probably explained how enough votes out there he could overturn lead and indeed with how close it was, I believe AP and Fox News call were a bit premature as it wouldn't have taken that much for Trump to win it.

I think in the morning when he woke up and saw he had fallen behind in Wisconsin which was called a few hours later, panic set in and more as the day wore on and Biden pulled ahead in Michigan and it was called.  Once both Michigan and Wisconsin were called, he may have tried to deny pending loss but was probably pretty obvious.  Once Biden pulled ahead in Georgia and Pennsylvania, it was pretty clear at that point to anyone who wasn't in denial (which Trump often is) that he was going to lose (even if he managed to win Arizona). 

That being said I think Trump is type who is able to convince himself his falsehoods are true so I actually believe he truly believes he won the election and it was stolen from him.  I think he has managed to convince himself of big lie.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Conservatives underestimate the power of the WC female vote, it's the hidden vote, that's why Progressive Moderate map will never happen and Kelly and CCM are favored and Fetterman will win in PA and we will beat Johnson in WI.

That WC females marched in the sixties with Dr King and helped end apartheid and we have Gretchen Whitmer and Debbie Dingle whom are the same wives of WC males that started the Insurrectionists

I bet that QAnon Viking mom voted for Biden since Viking flipped towards Biden so fast

[DaleCooper]

I voted yes because I had forgotten the timeline a bit, but now that I think about it, I suspect that he probably did see the writing on the walls and was delusional enough to think that proclaiming victory would save him. Around the time Arizona got called by Fox, the NYT needle indicated that Biden was the clear favorite in Georgia even though it'd be close and insiders were letting people know to expect Biden to win Wisconsin at some point in the night. Michigan was also clearly a matter of time by then too.

The question I suppose is whether or not Trump comprehended that he lost, because by the time he gave that speech I have no doubt that his campaign knew full well that he had no path to victory.

[ElectionsGuy]

Yes. Because apparently if you're opponent's votes come in later on average than your votes it must mean something's fraudulent. Honestly, I was surprised how many states counted mail-in votes first and looked so badly for Trump at first, more states seemed to do that but the three in the midwest did the opposite (and GA). I was expecting this kind of thing to happen if Trump ended up losing - because they were leading in enough EV's to win at some time, therefore it felt 'stolen'. If Biden had lost, I don't think it would've been much different, you'd have claims of voter suppression and votes wrongfully rejected with mail-in ballots to this day if it happened. But instead, it's "most secure election in US history" - sure, I'm supposed to believe that after the supposedly least secure election in US history in which Trump colluded with Putin to steal the 2016 election.

I would be entertained if in the future the Dems find a way to count all their votes faster so they don't have that late-night excuse. But of course, that doesn't address the people who believe the machines systematically shifted votes via an equation.

[lfromnj]

Yes. Because apparently if you're opponent's votes come in later on average than your votes it must mean something's fraudulent. Honestly, I was surprised how many states counted mail-in votes first and looked so badly for Trump at first, more states seemed to do that but the three in the midwest did the opposite (and GA). I was expecting this kind of thing to happen if Trump ended up losing - because they were leading in enough EV's to win at some time, therefore it felt 'stolen'. If Biden had lost, I don't think it would've been much different, you'd have claims of voter suppression and votes wrongfully rejected with mail-in ballots to this day if it happened. But instead, it's "most secure election in US history" - sure, I'm supposed to believe that after the supposedly least secure election in US history in which Trump colluded with Putin to steal the 2016 election.

I would be entertained if in the future the Dems find a way to count all their votes faster so they don't have that late-night excuse. But of course, that doesn't address the people who believe the machines systematically shifted votes via an equation.

IIRC the reason WI didn't precount mail in votes was so that people were still allowed to change their votes till ED.