Although I know some people believe Trump might be an Enneagram Three rather than a type Eight, as my type Three friends and colleagues say, “No self-respecting Three – being an image type – would ever wear hair like that or have an orange yellow-face with large white circles around the eyes. We’d have it done better than that!”

What happens next with Trump? Will he win? Will he lose? Or, is something else on the horizon? A month ago and prior to either the Republican or Democratic conventions, I had an intuition. I mentioned to my neighbor and to my office staff that I thought it possible that Trump might drop out of the race. It was an intuition on my part, but all those to whom I mentioned this said, “But he is all about winning!” In response, I said, “Yes, but for Trump if he thinks he will lose, it is more important not to lose than to win. Watch the polls.”

Today in the news, there are rumors that this is possible, though the Trump campaign vehemently denies it. Here’s my thinking, unchanged from last month about why and how. If the polls show over time that he is losing ground, both in popular vote but even more important, in a path to winning the electoral college vote – in the US, each state gets a special number of votes based on their relative populations plus 2 votes just because it is a state – I believe he will quit the race, and here’s why.

Money
In my assessment, Trump can’t afford to finance his own campaign, even if he had the amount of money he claims. Most of his money is not liquid, so he would have to sell off everything. If the poll numbers keep showing him losing, he would be unlikely to even try to finance his losing campaign. It would be more than he likely has, and he would never get it back. Even though Trump is doing better with donations in the last month, he is having a difficult time getting funding from major outside donors. In addition, Clinton has accumulated a vast treasure chest for her campaign over the last six months, but not so Trump. The less he gets, the less he gets.

Ego
Trump does not seem to have any frustration tolerance for the idea that he would lose. So if it looks like he could or will lose, Trump will, I believe, find a way out before the election occurs. He’d rather be a “quitter” than a “loser.” And as an Eight, he really knows how to blame – or at least try to blame – others when things are not going his way. Blaming is the Eights’ defense mechanism; we all have our own by type.

So who will Trump blame? Several months ago, it might have been the media, always a target for public figures and politicians when things are not going their way. That strategy won’t work very well these days; not only is blaming the media overused, but Trump wouldn’t be able to blame his leaving the presidential race on the media alone.

Trump would blame the Republican party for not supporting him enough. He would blame the RNC (Republican National Committee); he would blame big Republican donors; he would blame Paul Ryan, Speaker for the House of Representatives, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, and John McCain, just because he could. In other words, Trump would frame this not as “quitting,” and not as “losing,” but as “winning” an honorable battle against establishment politicians. Trump would hold onto his self-perception of being honest and noble, the Republicans would have no presidential candidate, chaos would ensue, and Trump would take most of his supporters with him, somewhere! His own cable TV channel, perhaps? New product endorsements? A third-party candidate?

Grandiosity and paranoia
Helen Palmer, from whom I learned the Enneagram years ago, told me something that stuck with me all these years. Helen, an intuitive and a very psychologically savvy person, said this: “With Enneagram Eights, if they are low functioning, their grandiosity is matched by an equal does of paranoia. The more grandiose, the more paranoid; the more paranoid, the more grandiose.”

I think we can expect more grandiosity and more paranoia from Donald Trump in the coming weeks and months. After that, perhaps my prediction will come true.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda PhD, the author of six best-selling Enneagram-business books, is a speaker, consultant, trainer, and coach. She provides certification programs for professionals around the world who want to bring the Enneagram into organizations with high-impact business applications, and is past-president of the International Enneagram Association. Visit her website: TheEnneagramInBusiness.com. ginger@theenneagraminbusiness.com