AUTHOR AND GLOBAL POLITICAL CONSULTANT: WHAT GOES THROUGH A CANDIDATE'S MIND IN THE FINAL DAYS

Zurich, Switzerland—Dr. Louis Perron, author of Beat the Incumbent, has been involved in many high-stakes elections. The final week of the campaign is one of great stress for the candidate and the campaign manager.

Here is how he describes it:

"This is the time where, as a consultant, you get calls at 1am or 2am, when the candidate is on the way home, exhausted, but wants to get rid of something that goes through his mind. At this stage, as a consultant, you do probably more listening than talking as the strategic decisions are reached (or at least, this should be the case).

"Deep inside, all candidates think about winning and losing, but the latter is suppressed. This unleashes a lot of energy. It's also the time where candidates stop sleeping and campaign day and night. It's another way of dealing with the fear of losing that you don't want to leave any stone un-turned.

"It's like in sports. One thing that the winners have in common is that they are scared to death of losing."

Dr. Perron also doubts that the undecided voters are really undecided: "Most independents are not really independent. Corollary, most undecideds are not really undecided. There is a case to be made that the chunk of them are hidden Trump voters."

According to Perron, that doesn't necessarily mean that Trump will win, however. "The polls in the U.S. were off far more two years ago, four years ago and eight years ago. It's possible that pollsters are now overcompensating after having underestimated Trump for many years."

"Tactically, I think this race has now clearly shifted to get out the vote. But this is actually changing to take home delivery of the vote. Manpower on the ground has to adapt. It still includes door knocking, but also a lot of logistics on the early and absentee voting", said Dr. Perron.

Dr. Louis Perron has been featured in Newsweek, USA Today, C-SPAN, Daily Mail, Al Jazeera, and many other media outlets.