Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump bucked conventional wisdom by making a bid to win votes at a rally Saturday in Connecticut, a blue state that has not voted for a Republican since 1988.
The latest Quinnipiac University poll, conducted in June, found Hillary Clinton held a seven-point lead over Trump in the state. But Trump feels he can win. He told an animated audience of about 5,000 at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield that he has a chance because of the unpopularity of Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy, a surrogate for Hillary Clinton.
Trump brought up Malloy in his speech after an attack on several media outlets, including the New York Times, which he called "garbage."
"Talking about garbage," he said. "You have a governor in this state that is doing a very poor job."
Trump went on to mock Malloy for the state’s largest fortune 500 company, GE, moving to Boston.
“Wouldn’t leave if Trump were governor,” he said. “General Electric, one of the great monster companies, and you lost 'em. You gotta vote for Trump as a signal to your incompetent governor.”
Trump also pointed to rising taxes and budget woes as factors that could lead disaffected Democrats to vote for him in November.
He went as far as to say that he would blame voters if he were to lose, after spending $50 million of his own money on the primaries and what he called “a fortune” on the general election.
“Can you imagine how I would feel if I spent all of that money, all of this energy, all of this time, and lost?” he said. “I will never ever forgive the people of Connecticut, I will never forgive the people of Florida, and Pennsylvania and Ohio. But I love them anyway.”