Donald Trump on Friday night dipped into a reflective mood to marvel at his campaign’s unanticipated success.
“This all began June 16. Who knew this was going to happen? I figured maybe I’d be in the pack,” a subdued Trump said at his final rally before South Carolina’s Republican primary on Saturday, which could hand Trump his second consecutive electoral victory. “I thought it was going to be like a horse race. I’d be in the middle of the pack and at the very end I’d inch it out.”
But Trump isn’t in the middle of the pack, ready to inch out a victory in South Carolina. He’s leading it, with CNN’s average of South Carolina polling showing Trump with a double-digit lead over his closest competitor, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. The victory would be a momentous one for Trump and a blow to several of his opponents, including Cruz, who has positioned himself as the conservative capable of rallying the South to capture the nomination.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who are in third and fourth place, respectively, were also expected to do well in the state — and Rubio has secured the endorsements of South Carolina’s most prominent elected officials, including its popular governor and one of its senators.
And while Trump touted his 20-point victory just a week earlier in the New Hampshire primary, he also sought to undercut his supporters’ — and the media’s expectations — urging them not to look at the polling showing him poised to clutch a decisive victory, but instead to get out and vote like they were preparing for a nail-biter.
“Who knows what the numbers are. The polls are very nice. Who knows? We can’t take a chance,” Trump said in comments starkly in contrast with his predictions of a “tremendous victory” in Iowa the day he ultimately faltered with a second-place finish.
“It’s crunch time, folks. It’s crunch time,” he reminded the audience of thousands of supporters who flocked to North Charleston’s convention center for the brash billionaire’s final rally before the state’s GOP voting begins.
Still, Trump did not disappoint supporters looking for a more representative experience of watching the brash and controversy-prone Republican presidential rip his opponents apart and stray far from politically correct conversation.
Trump ripped Cruz as someone “who lies more than any other human being I have ever seen” and slammed politicians broadly as “all taken care of by every industry.”
And Trump also raised an apocryphal story of U.S. Gen. John Pershing ordering his troops in the Philippines a century ago to dip 49 bullets in pigs’ blood before firing on 50 captured Muslims — with the last man told to return home and tell what had happened to deter future terror attacks.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about what Trump was suggesting in referencing the story, which a Snopes investigation was unable to corroborate a year ago.
But ending as he started, Trump returned to his reflective tone, reminding his supporters that they are part of a movement of which he is simply the “messenger” — and urging them to get out and vote.
“You’re going to say to yourselves this was one of the greatest evenings and one of the great days of your lives,” Trump said.
“We’re going to make America great again. Thank you, everybody. I love you.”