Trump needs constant assurance his candidacy is on track: NYT

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump requires constant assurance that his candidacy is on track and is struggling to suppress his "bottomless need" for attention even as he portrays being calm and confident as the election enters the home stretch, a media report said.

"Donald J Trump is not sleeping much these days. Aboard his gold-plated jumbo jet, the Republican nominee does not like to rest or be alone with his thoughts, insisting that aides stay up and keep talking to him. He prefers the soothing, whispery voice of his son-in-law," a report in the New York Times said, giving an inside account of the Trump campaign's final stretch.
 

The report said Trump requires constant assurance that his candidacy is on track and he is struggling to suppress his bottomless need for attention.

"In the final days of the presidential campaign, Trump's candidacy is a jarring split screen: the choreographed show of calm and confidence orchestrated by his staff, and the neediness and vulnerability of a once-boastful candidate now uncertain of victory," it said.

As he headed into the campaign's final weekend, Trump refused to entertain any suggestions that his "unorthodox, unpredictable and now uncertain campaign" for the presidency would end in defeat.

"I'm going to win," he said, according to the NYT report.

The NYT report added that on the surface, there is the semblance of stability that is robbing Trump's rival Hillary Clinton of her most potent weapon, which is his "self-sabotaging eruptions" that have repeatedly undermined his candidacy."

But underneath that veneer, "turbulence still reigns, making it difficult for him to overcome all of the obstacles blocking his path to the White House. It said Trump's aides have acknowledge that his chances of winning the election are 'iffy' and feel that his calmer temperament in the last few days of the election cannot erase 16 months of 'erratic' conduct.

"Their best hope for his campaign was the FBI inquiry into Clinton's email server but that fizzled when the agency said there will be no further action against her. The report also notes that Trump's daughter Ivanka sat for a commercial intended to appeal to suburban women who have recoiled from her father's incendiary language.

"But she discouraged the campaign from promoting the ad in news releases, fearing that her high-profile association with the campaign would damage the businesses that bear her name," it said.