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

"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.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up