The new NBC News/Survey Monkey Tracking Poll finds Clinton now leading Trump by 50-42 among registered voters nationally, which is up from a one point race last week. With the minor party candidates factored in, she leads by 42-38.
It is perhaps not a coincidence that Trump has suddenly stopped tweeting about polls at precisely the moment that he is escalating his efforts to cast doubt, in advance, on the legitimacy of the general election’s outcome.
Trump and his supporters have now said in a series of new public remarks that the outcome of the election is likely to be “rigged.” Yesterday, on the campaign trail, Trump said: “I’m afraid the election’s going to be rigged. I have to be honest.”
Meanwhile, longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone is explicitly encouraging Trump to make this case to his supporters.
“I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly,” Stone told a friendly interviewer, adding that Trump should start saying this: “If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”
Stone also said: “I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath.”
Trump will only amplify this idea if the polls show that he is going to lose.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/08/02/donald-trump-begins-contemplating-the-unthinkable-he-might-lose/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b
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