Trump Reportedly Plans To Declare Early Victory Before Votes Are Counted If He Appears To Be Ahead

President Donald Trump has told close aides that he will declare victory on Tuesday night if he looks “ahead” in the early count, sources told Axios. 

When addressing reporters on Sunday night, Trump denied he would declare victory ahead of the full election count on the night of November 3.

“I think it’s a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election,” he said. “I think it’s a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over.”

“I think it’s terrible that we can’t know the results of an election the night of the election…. We’re going to go in the night of, as soon as that election’s over, we’re going in with our lawyers,” the president added. “We don’t want to have Pennsylvania, where you have a political governor, a very partisan guy. We don’t want to be in a position where he’s allowed, every day, to watch ballots come in. See if we can only find 10,000 more ballots.”

Trump is said to have already planned his walk up to the podium on Tuesday evening to announce his victory in the election.

Similarly, Trump’s campaign senior adviser Jason Miller has asserted that the president “will be re-elected handily and no amount of post-election Democratic thievery will be able to change the results.”

Allies, who are confident in re-electing the president, claim they expect Trump to win the battleground states of Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Arizona and Georgia, though poll show him trailing or tied in each.