As we all should know, Donald Trump is our next president of the United States. Untrustworthy and change has indeed won over the hearts of the American people and the oval office. Exit polling has shown how Trump made history Wednesday morning by pulling off one of the most improbable election victories. His win caught us all by surprise, we thought so many people were going against him after his comments and scandals, but in the end, did they really?

Exit polling showed that 49 percent of white college graduates voted for Trump and 45 percent of them said they voted for Clinton. Though we didn’t think that white college graduates would support Trump, according to many class discussions, this was not the case. However, him not winning much of the minority parties was one correct aspect that was called by many people prior to Election Day. Many people were not particularly enthusiastic about any candidate, but they still decided that Trump was the lesser of the two evils and most of them still voted for Trump.

With Election Day being six days away and early voting already starting, in Georgia at least, we must shift our focus strongly to polls in each state. As Dr. Adams talked about in class, we need to closely watch what happens to Florida during the campaign, so that’s what we’ll discuss.

Though Trump is still behind in the count, he has taken the lead in some key battleground states — including Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina — and is edging out Clinton in the traditional swing states of Ohio and Florida.  Trump is making great strides to win in these prominent states this election. Aside from his previous catastrophes, he has not said anything that was disastrous enough to “trump” the further investigation of Hillary’s email scandals. In fact, this investigation of her emails have allowed him to  reclaim a competitive part in this election where his campaign may have thought that it was over after the alleged victims of his sexual misconduct came forward.

The poll shows 86 percent of Republicans are now planning on supporting Trump, up from 82 percent earlier this week. More significantly, Trump has also gone from a 6 point deficit to a 16 point advantage with independent voters. These polls are important because Trumps’ previous statements about the polls being rigged and that he doesn’t believe they’re portraying him in an accurate manner, yet now the gap between him and Clinton is closing. In class, Dr. Panetta continuously asks us things about the voters having made up their minds about the race and who they’re voting for. Until this point, I have thought that everyone made their decision, but this coming back of Trump is really distorting what I thought was going to happen this far into the election season. He has done a great job by letting his story die down and focusing on the campaign while letting Clinton take the scrutiny for her misdoings.

Florida is a main state, and without it, he has no plausible path to the presidency without Florida’s 29 electoral votes. On October 30, Trump was ahead in Florida, which is a win for him, but I still think that this far into the race with numbers being so close, that he’s playing too safe and needs to ensure the people something to solidify a win for himself. On November 8, we will definitely see if the South is really red, blue, or a new “purple stew.”

Gettysburg. A place where respectable people, and presidential hopefuls in this case, come to deliver speeches of unity, of a vision for the country, and of common goals they have in mind to unite the country. The speech being given here could be described as enthymematic because we didn’t explicitly know why he gave the speech here, but many Americans know the history Gettysburg has. Trump’s reasons for giving his speech there cold be different from the speculated reasons the media is portraying. As we discussed in class, Donald Trump unsurprisingly gave a speech at Gettysburg about his plan for the first 100 days of his presidency. However, he also threatened that he would sue the women who accused him of sexual assault, which probably was not the best move since our class discussion that he needs moderate female voters to win the election.

Trump’s polling prior to the speech has been pretty consistent among the white male and female population with a typical 55% male and a 46% female support base. Either way, both of these numbers are greater than the Democratic nominee, Clinton. Though his support from the white population is steady, this will not alone help him win the presidency because Clinton is still overall in the lead, primarily due to his comments about women. “Clinton leads 55-35 percent among women, and has doubled her margin to 32 points among college-educated white women – a group strongly critical of Trump’s response to allegations of inappropriate behavior.”

With all the allegations surrounding Trump, it was very smart of him to speak at Gettysburg, but it was more harmful to what should be his target population. In order to possibly win the election, or to simply turn his polling numbers around in terms of college-educated white women, he must watch what he says about women and to women because this is a sensitive subject to most Americans.

As we know, Donald Trump has had many mishaps throughout his campaign, but what’s damaging him most now it the videos about sexual assault that he was associated with. In class, we discussed that the media stays hooked onto stories such as these because they appeal to the voters’ emotion as opposed to the media becoming so deeply invested in the Clinton emails. We also talked about how Trump claims that the voting system is rigged and the media is mostly liberal, and some of his recent comments have support his narrative about voting in America is a conspiracy.

Donald Trump has said things that would lead those who don’t support him, and just voters in general, that the voting system is rigged, but not only is it rigged, polling is also inaccurate. “They say we are tied in Colorado, I don’t think so, I’ll be honest. Something’s going on, something,” Trump said during his second rally of the day in the state. Trump honestly believes he is ahead through all the things he has said to degrade women and minorities, he still thinks the media is out to get him. He thinks that voting is just a fraud and that if he loses, it will be because some cheating took place. Not only does Trump say that voting is rigged, but his recent accusations are causing his polling to go down. The poll also found that 56% of voters said the 2005 recording of Donald Trump talking about sexually assaulting women “will be a concern” as they vote, compared with 40% who said he had put the issues to rest. Though polling allegedly doesn’t matter to Trump, the little things that have come about are causing him to lose support which will be detrimental to him in the long run.

“I don’t believe the polls,” Trump said during the rally.

“They are not terrible, they are sort of good,” he immediately followed.

At this point in the race, the things that are coming out about Trump are severely harming his campaign. If he goes with the story that the media is out to get him and that they’re liberals, then it could alleviate some of the pain, but as of right now, it seems like support of him is on the decline.

In light of recent speeches made by Donald Trump, the overarching theme seems to be to discourage people from voting in general or to vote for him, which would be even better. The “people” he wishes to not come out to vote are more specifically African Americans and other minorities he has bad-talked in the past.

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s polling amongst the African American community has been on a constant decline. He has given many speeches where he degrades them and what they stand for. Things Trump has said about them such as, “You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed.”Though his numbers are still decreasing within this minority, he is trying to clean up his wrongdoings and actually “engage” more with them, or so it seems. In particular, Trump going to visit the predominantly African American church in Detroit shows that 1) he’s desperate for their vote, 2) he wants to right his wrongs, or 3) he just wants to get back in their good graces.  Despite him trying to sway the people, African Americans have already made up their minds about him, and he has gone to a place of no return.

Lewis also believes Saturday’s visit shows Trump’s desperation as election day draws closer and he needs the black vote.

“He left us out and he wants to make up for that,” she said. “But it’s a little too late.”

On another note, Trump seems to have “plans in store” for African American voters for Election Day. Allegedly there will be some type of violence on Election Day to deter African Americans from voting. Donald Trump specifically said, “Go and vote and then go check out areas because a lot of bad things happen,” he said in Pennsylvania, where lax state laws allow poll watchers to challenge voters as they arrive at precincts.” This instills fear in African American voters and will deter them from voting or even trying to attend the polls once word gets around that this is happening.

This tactic can be strategic, but counteractive to his efforts of trying to get African American people back on his campaign.

It’s no surprise that Trump has alienated voters and insulted even his own party, but that should’ve been expected. What we shouldn’t have expected was that his $916 million dollar loss from his 1995 tax return would be uncovered and that he wouldn’t have anything to say to defend himself other than threatening to sue the newspaper for what he insists is “illegally obtained” material. Through all the insults and the general dislike of Donald Trump, surprisingly, the results of recent polling are in his favor and in some states, he has been projected to be better off than Clinton.

At this point in the race, it seems like both candidates have “found their safe places” and know the extent to what they can and can’t say that will cause controversy and a loss of supporters in the end. In my opinion, Donald Trump has realized that he can’t slander everyone or he would be left with no supporters. I think he realizes that his supporters may not 100% voting for him, but he’s doing everything he can to keep them on his side, which is why him leading polls in Maine isn’t surprising. Trump led by 10 points in a Boston Globe/Colby College poll conducted last month, and by 14 points in a Portland Press Herald poll. Maine is mostly a blue state, so this is very surprising that he is turning some districts of Maine in his favor, he is doing something extremely right.

Throughout Trump’s campaign, he has successfully kept supporters by keeping his themes for presidency broad, like by just talking about pressing issues like immigration and trade. Keeping themes broad has allowed supporters to stick by his side because they want to see a change with these issues, but going too specific will also lose support for him. Trump also has a good knack of talking about pressing problems at the right time. Though it might just be rhetoric and not necessarily meaningful, it has kept people on board with him. “As I’ve said all along, Donald Trump’s message on the economy and jobs really resonates with people who feel they’ve been left behind and who have lost their jobs because of poorly negotiated trade agreements,” Collins said.

Donald Trump may have done some sketchy things throughout this campaign season, but he is undoubtedly still a strong contender and his polling numbers going up does nothing but confirm this statement.