Trump will reportedly no longer attend his Washington hotel's election night party

(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

published 30 October 2020

"President Trump has called off plans to appear at the Trump International Hotel on election night and is likely to be at the White House instead," Maggie Haberman reports at The New York Times, citing a person familiar with the plans. Trump's campaign has been heavily promoting an election night party at the hotel, and advisers had said Trump would make an appearance, the Times reports.

It isn't clear why Trump won't attend the election party, but there are several reasons he might have changed his mind, Haberman reports. First, it would look bad for him to once more mingle official business and his family's business, especially while violating Washington, D.C.'s COVID-19 crowd restrictions. Also, he is trailing by a wide margin in national and key state polls, and there's a good chance the winner of the presidential race won't even be known by Wednesday morning.

For the past few days, too, "Trump, who is deeply superstitious, has tried to recreate as many of the conditions that obtained during his successful 2016 campaign as possible," Haberman reports. He has surrounded himself with people from the final days of his race four years ago and he is trying to raise questions about Democratic challenger Joe Biden's son Hunter in ways that "parallel how he attacked Hillary Clinton in 2016," she adds. "Trump's approach to politics has always been to treat it as something of a mystical proposition, governed by otherworldly forces in a world in which things generally work out in his favor." As one of Trump's favorite campaign songs goes, "You can't always get what you want." But if you try sometimes, you can read more at The New York Times.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.