I worked on double digits of campaigns for various offices in my lifetime.
I have never heard a candidate start out by saying “we are not planning on winning this”.
Not once.
If we did not win the campaign failed.
Everyone knew it.
All claims to the contrary were just spinning.
You think that Ron Paul, Lyndon Larouche, Duncan Hunter, Pat Buchannon, Marianne Williamson, and the 100s of people like that thought they were going to be President of the United States?
I have worked on lots of campaigns as well, the context here though is the vast numbers of Presidential candidates.