Early voting opened quite some time ago, and many people took advantage of shorter lines to cast their vote for presidential candidate. Some were eager to cast their vote for their favorite candidate, while others were eager to be one step closer to this election season being over. It has been a long and draining national election season, and the presidential candidates know that America is tired.

Donald Trump is using media, specifically Facebook posts and campaigns, to rally his supporters and encourage them to get to the polls. Trump’s posts continually ask, “Who is still standing with me in the final days?” and say things like, “Join me” as he urges voters to get to the polls. His communication encourages voters to stay riled up in his support and to connect with other Trump supporters in these final weary days up until Tuesday. Trump is attempting to exhibit unity between fundraising, voting, and conservative values.

Another thing that Trump’s Facebook posts are constantly communicating are messages about “Crooked Hillary.” His media pushes news articles in addition to photos and memes of Hillary’s scandals. One of the latest articles that Trump promotes reads that Homeland Security may be calling Clinton’s email scandal “treason.” These articles and his posts about her seem to be in hopes that people will be offended by her actions and any fence- sitters will be motivated and get to the polls to vote against her.

Trump has created an interesting communicative pattern of “support me and hate her” throughout this election. His posts display alternating headlines of Trump rising in percentage points and Hillary being accused of something else. Only time will tell if this dialogue is effective in winning him the presidency.

While sometimes it is hard to tell which polls are accurate, there is a new trend showing that Trump is closing the gap or has taken a lead in some states like Florida. It is difficult to know what truth value to assign to each poll, as some poll the same group of people each time and the sample may be misrepresented.

Trump appears to keep pushing stories he has seen to work, like narratives and new investigations about e-mails and wiki leaks. While from a communications standpoint this may seem redundant and tiresomely repetitive, from a polling standpoint it seems to work. By reminding voters over and over again of these untrustworthy narratives about Hillary Clinton, he is rhetorically fighting his representation of unstable by keeping his communication patterns consistent. He is also drilling home through communication that he believes Hillary has put herself in too much legal trouble to be able to be seen as fit for president.

It seems that much of the conversation surrounding this election is “I can’t vote for Candidate X because of …” or “I can’t vote for the other because of …” Trump’s rhetoric in his speeches adds to this outline of reasoning. His communication style is not quite “vote for me because I will accomplish x, y, and z,” but instead he is saying not to vote for Clinton because he believes she has put herself above the law and deceived many people.

At a time when many Americans are concerned for protection and trust, this communication may sway people over the next week and a half to lean one way or another when it comes to voting. We have already seen in a difference in polling despite the pushes we have seen working against Trump in media. I believe that the October surprises are through and we will see Trump attempt to reinforce the “untrustworthy” rhetoric of Clinton until the day of the election (and potentially after).

With just weeks to go until the official Election Day, communication surrounding political scandals litters almost every day-to-day conversation. After the lewd Trump video was released here, his supporters have made every attempt possible to further taint Clinton’s name in media. The controversy of deleted e-mails has clearly not carried them as far as they had hoped. As a result, there are many stories with different amounts of truth-value circulating all platforms of social media. If we are learning anything about Trump and his supporters it is that they would never go down without a fight. They are having to work with new story lines in hopes to change not only the polls to favor Trump, but the election itself.

Communication about scandals concerning Hillary Clinton has surfaced through many platforms including word of mouth, social media, and broadcast television. This rhetoric that further promotes her as untrustworthy is what many Trump supporters have turned to in order to influence polls and on the fence voters. They are using every resource they can to frame her in a way that she looks untrustworthy in order to sway voters to support Trump as the lesser of two evils.

While many of these accusations and controversies may seem weak in comparison to the release of Trump’s “locker room” trash talk, these stories about Clinton’s untrustworthy character are Trump supporter’s last ditch attempt to convince voters through communication tactics that Clinton is not the right candidate for the position of president. Because Trump is behind in the polls and lacks official surrogates, it is his fanatic followers to make an attempt to rally the nation to support their non traditional leader.

With almost 20% of states being considered “toss up-states” according to the Daily Wire, there is a lot of chance surrounding next month’s presidential election. As of yesterday, there are 9 states that sit on the fence between the two leading presidential candidates which leaves 113 electoral votes up for grabs. While this could be a time for Trump to leverage influence and woo potential voters, it seems to be used instead as a time to increase mocking of one of the most questionable candidates America has ever seen. Rhetorically, Trump doesn’t get to control his polls because the media is controlling it for him based off of the careless things that come out of his mouth. His communication is abrasive and the communication about his actions is absolute mockery.

 

Trump’s need to improve his poll numbers has recently been used a source of entertainment for shows like The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Fallon impersonating Trump begs the character Madea, and other famous characters including a caricature of Hillary Clinton to vote for him in the upcoming election. The parody includes jokes about Trump’s falling poll numbers as well has his tiny hands.

In light of my other post, speaking to the fact that Trump seems to disregard the polls, he wasn’t helped in that area of perceived flippancy when a video of a provocative conversation from 2005 surfaced last week. In the video Trump spent some time talking with a buddy and extensively degraded women. When confronted about it during the debate he referred to it as “locker room talk” and that it didn’t represent his character. While Trump seemed to have some feelings of regret about this lewd conversation, his apologia speech seemed cold- and he used it as an outlet to bring up mistakes of Hillary and Bill Clinton which practically negates the apology after all. This speech was also a point of mockery for late night television- making Trump seem more and more like a monkey in the world of politics.

Between the mockery that Trump seems to walk right into and continually putting his foot in his mouth when it comes to every situation- Trump has a lot of work to do repairing and maintaining his image before he can do anything about the polls besides pray.

 

 

Due on Sunday, edited after global feedback.

Similar to the typical incumbent strategy to appear above presidential campaigning, Donald Trump appears to put himself above the polls. For a man who gets fired up about many things- the polls do not seem to concern him. Putting himself above the polls stands in line with his persistent argument that he is not a typical “career politician” candidate.

In September, when Trump’s numbers were increasing he was quoted saying he did not know why his poll numbers were improving. He speculated that the “enthusiasm” of the national audience could be due to his conversation about jobs, the second amendment, or caring for the military. His unknowing attitude gives off an air of being grateful that the polls are up saying, “We’ve had a great month”, but at the same time not concerned with the exact details.

In August, Michael Cohen was interviewed on CNN, and it was suggested that Trump was down in the polls. He immediately questioned, “Says who?,” trying to probe the interviewer, Brianna Keilar, about which polls. Confused and assertive, she replies with “All of them,” – a response that is, sure, all encompassing, but lacks evidence. The awkward silence on live news lends way to a thought groups. One being that Cohen is abrasive and trying to elude the question. Another being that Keilar does not actually have the information about the specific polls. I tend to believe it is the ladder. Cohen was looking for solid facts about the things he was being questioned on because generalizations about being down in all the polls was not something that would disrupt their campaigning.

Trump desires to keep up his persona as a businessman. Someone different compared to his opponent, Clinton, who has spent her lifetime developing a career in politics. By acting nonchalant, he is using the polls in a way that promotes he is not a politician that is consumed by them.