Why do campaigns try to convince you that they are winning, even when they are not?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

Mitt Romney was trying to convince us he was winning till election day. Same with John Mccain. Obviously same with Trump.

I don't remember the Kerry campaign in great details, so I am not sure if he did this as well.

what drives this?

[napi21]

1. Because nobody contributes to a loser and their campaign goes into freefall.

They HAVE to make it sound like more money is needed to KEEP THEM AHEAD!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

3. that's a good point

[Iggo]

16. Got it in one.

[still_one]

2. What do you expect them to say? "We are losing, so you might as well not even bother

to vote?"

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. no, but i can see highlighting losing as a reason to contribute more or to register to vote etc

rather than trying to spin stories out of winning out of bad polls

[Faux pas]

5. Ego?

Or maybe they're trying to convince their selves?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. Most Democrats that I know seem realistic about it.

It's Republican voters who seem more unwilling to accept reality... to the point of contradicting themselves from one statement to the next. Perhaps Republican politicians and propagandists know their audience?

It certainly doesn't help Republican voters when they can't accept information that contradicts their beliefs, tossing the blame at the "liberal media" when it happens.

Examples:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. no, i dont think so. during the primaries in 08 and 16, people who were clearly losing

kept saying they could win

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. I wasn't here to see the behavior of Hillary and Bernie supporters in those...

... primaries, so perhaps I'm generalizing too much.

As for Kerry in 2004, that was indeed very close. He would have won the electoral college if he'd won Ohio, with results that looked suspicious later. If anyone back then proclaimed that he'd win easily, they weren't being realistic either.

[bettyellen]

20. There is a bit of truth to the momentum thing- some people do not want to vote for the loser....

And I think it's more to manipulate any undecideds than it is something they believe.

[Coyotl]

7. There is about a 5% psychological advantage to being perceived as the winner ahead of the voting.

At least according to some psychological material I read. Most people are firmly decided before the voting, but the undecideds decide a lot of elections.

[NCTraveler]

9. Image is everything. Everything. Sad but true.

The only reason Trump has what little support he does is because of image.

[geek tragedy]

10. Depending on how close it is, a lot of it is down ticket races.

they want to keep interest and turnout up, if they say "well, we're going to lose, oh well" then turnout craters and their party gets wiped out in other races

Interesting thing with Trump is that he gives exactly zero fucks about downticket Republicans. If he realizes he's going to lose, what will he do?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. happens during primaries too though

[geek tragedy]

13. very competitive people who run in these races, not the type to bag it because

of bad poll numbers, etc.

[Mme. Defarge]

14. Actually,

I think Kerry probably did win.

[0rganism]

15. winning and losing both have self-reinforcing feedback effects

if the public at large believes your campaign is losing, you have a problem.
if your supporters believe your campaign is losing, you have an even bigger problem.

for a politician to even have a chance at winning, at least some people need to believe s/he can do it.

[Third Doctor]

17. I just looked in on the cess pit that his yahoo comments.

Many of them are in denial that they are losing right now. We are a lot more rational when the chips are down than the Trump cultists.

[SaschaHM]

18. The Romney campaign thought that they were winning.

They bought into the "unskew the polls" nonsense so much that Mitt didn't even write a concession speech ahead of time.

[Yavin4]

19. It's the "Go with the winner" effect

People on the fence don't want to waste their vote on a losing candidate.