Trump is workshopping the false victory declaration for election day.

There were also focus groups, and Vox’s Andrew Prokop summarizes the findings of Frank Luntz’s group quite nicely:

Asked to describe Trump in one word or phrase, the responses were: “horrid,” “chaotic,” “unpolished,” “crackhead,” “ehh,” “puzzling,” “un-American,” “unhinged” … “classic Trump,” “forceful,” “unhinged,” “bully,” “arrogant,” arrogant,” “typical.”

Then, asked to describe Biden, the responses were: “I was surprised at how well he did,” “better than expected,” “definitely more professional than Trump and I think he’s more a people person,” “competent,” “politician,” “showed restraint and compassion,” “politician,” “predictable,” “nice guy but lacking vision,” “coherent,” “leader,” “attentive and rehearsed,” “somewhat evasive,” “humanity and integrity,” “predictable,” “presidential.”

Simply put, these are not the findings you want if you are the guy trailing the front-runner by more than seven points with less than five weeks to go.

The final data point suggesting that Trump bombed was the degree to which even his supporters and sympathizers criticized his performance. On CNN, Rick Santorum acknowledged that Trump had done poorly; Scott Jennings said, “He went from being on offense to just being offensive.” On ABC, Chris Christie — one of the guys who helped Trump with debate prep — acknowledged that he was “too hot.” Ed Rollins, who fronts a pro-Trump super PAC, refused to comment on Trump’s performance.

A day later, The Washington Post, Politico, the New York Times and Vanity Fair all had stories chock-full of Republicans fretting about the president’s performance. I had to make 11 additions to the #ToddlerinChief thread in the 24 hours after the debate ended. That is never a good sign for Trump’s maturity.

www.washingtonpost.com/…

— Joe Cesare (@OneSixtyToOne) October 1, 2020

He truly only has one bit left in his shtick:

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