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The morning after the vice-presidential debate, Cathy Frasca woke at 5 a.m. and hand-wrote a four-page letter to Donald Trump that said: “It is obvious that you could easily lose this election.”
The 89-year-old grandmother urged Trump to release his taxes, ignore the controversies that Hillary Clinton tries to start, stop tweeting at 3 a.m. and remember that “Bill Clinton is not running for election, so please avoid using precious time to discuss his sex life.” Instead, Frasca wrote, Trump should tell voters about how he will improve the country.
“You know what to do but time is running out,” she wrote in closing. “My prayers are with you always.”
As Trump bounces from one controversy to another and Hillary Clinton gains in the polls, there is a growing realization among some of his most devoted supporters that he could lose the election. They still hope he will win, as the idea of another President Clinton angers and scares them. They blame the Republican Party for not doing enough to support its nominee, the media for focusing on comments Trump made years ago and Democrats who, they say, rigged the system. But they also place a little blame on Trump.
As Frasca watched the second presidential debate Sunday night, she was glad to see that Trump seemed better prepared and that he apologized for his “toilet talk” in 2005 when he told an “Access Hollywood” host that he could grope women and force himself on them sexually because he was famous. She was delighted to hear Trump tell Clinton that she should be in jail, but she didn’t understand why he dragged along women who have accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual assault or harassment.
On Monday morning, Frasca put on a yellow T-shirt featuring a screaming Hillary Clinton, flames and the message, “Liar! Liar! Pants suit on fire.” She and a few friends from her retirement community in Sewickley traveled a few miles north to a high school gym in this suburb of Pittsburgh for a Trump rally. Frasca brought along a copy of the letter she mailed to Trump Tower, just in case she got to meet the candidate.
At rallies like these, Trump can live in a world where he is still winning. He was introduced as “the next president” and greeted by a screaming crowd of 2,500 while, he said, “thousands and thousands” more waited outside. There were no polls showing Clinton with a double-digit lead, no debate moderators grilling him on the Syrian conflict, no party leaders telling him to tone it down. Here, Trump declared himself the winner of the debate, berated the media and attacked Clinton without any interruptions from fact-checkers.
Crowds like these are Trump’s case for not dropping out of the race. Crowds like these are his evidence that he can still win. Crowds are his polls.
But Trump has already won these people over, and if he wants to win the election, he has to dramatically broaden his following.
Outside the high school, a few dozen union workers and protesters gathered. One man held a sign that said, “Trump is a sexual pervert.” Three young women chanted: “Trump’s unfit!”
Jamie Young, 49, watched the commotion from a friend’s porch. She voted for Trump in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary and went to five of his rallies — and is now embarrassed that she did.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-truest-believers-start-to-worry-you-could-easily-lose-this-election/2016/10/10/0b964658-8f20-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trump-0745pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
The 89-year-old grandmother urged Trump to release his taxes, ignore the controversies that Hillary Clinton tries to start, stop tweeting at 3 a.m. and remember that “Bill Clinton is not running for election, so please avoid using precious time to discuss his sex life.” Instead, Frasca wrote, Trump should tell voters about how he will improve the country.
“You know what to do but time is running out,” she wrote in closing. “My prayers are with you always.”
As Trump bounces from one controversy to another and Hillary Clinton gains in the polls, there is a growing realization among some of his most devoted supporters that he could lose the election. They still hope he will win, as the idea of another President Clinton angers and scares them. They blame the Republican Party for not doing enough to support its nominee, the media for focusing on comments Trump made years ago and Democrats who, they say, rigged the system. But they also place a little blame on Trump.
As Frasca watched the second presidential debate Sunday night, she was glad to see that Trump seemed better prepared and that he apologized for his “toilet talk” in 2005 when he told an “Access Hollywood” host that he could grope women and force himself on them sexually because he was famous. She was delighted to hear Trump tell Clinton that she should be in jail, but she didn’t understand why he dragged along women who have accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual assault or harassment.
On Monday morning, Frasca put on a yellow T-shirt featuring a screaming Hillary Clinton, flames and the message, “Liar! Liar! Pants suit on fire.” She and a few friends from her retirement community in Sewickley traveled a few miles north to a high school gym in this suburb of Pittsburgh for a Trump rally. Frasca brought along a copy of the letter she mailed to Trump Tower, just in case she got to meet the candidate.
At rallies like these, Trump can live in a world where he is still winning. He was introduced as “the next president” and greeted by a screaming crowd of 2,500 while, he said, “thousands and thousands” more waited outside. There were no polls showing Clinton with a double-digit lead, no debate moderators grilling him on the Syrian conflict, no party leaders telling him to tone it down. Here, Trump declared himself the winner of the debate, berated the media and attacked Clinton without any interruptions from fact-checkers.
Crowds like these are Trump’s case for not dropping out of the race. Crowds like these are his evidence that he can still win. Crowds are his polls.
But Trump has already won these people over, and if he wants to win the election, he has to dramatically broaden his following.
Outside the high school, a few dozen union workers and protesters gathered. One man held a sign that said, “Trump is a sexual pervert.” Three young women chanted: “Trump’s unfit!”
Jamie Young, 49, watched the commotion from a friend’s porch. She voted for Trump in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary and went to five of his rallies — and is now embarrassed that she did.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-truest-believers-start-to-worry-you-could-easily-lose-this-election/2016/10/10/0b964658-8f20-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trump-0745pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory