I'm seeing way too much overconfidence among people I thought were sensible about Trump's inevitable defeat. The president is as popular today as he was at the end of the 2019 shutdown, and if there's one lesson we should have learned by now, it's that the guy bounces back.

What happens on November 3 will largely be determined by unforeseeable circumstances in October. That doesn't mean we can't plan and fight aggressively to win, but maybe the press can hold off repeating every single one of the mistakes it made in 2016, just to keep things fresh

In particular, no one should assume that the coronavirus shares their politics (it's an ideologically complex pathogen!) or that the current mood of gloom and defeat won't be replaced by another cycle of jubilation and denial at an electorally inconvenient moment

If you don't personally know anyone who voted for Trump, or can't imagine how anyone could vote for Trump, then consider that you're not in a great position to anticipate what's going to happen in November. Your gut feeling is *always* going to be that Trump will lose

There is way too much focus on possible election fraud and foreign influence, and too little on the strong possibility that Trump will just win re-election outright. We're even back to the "will he accept the results of the election" hand-wringing. He sure did last time around!

At this moment in 2016, smart people were all atwitter about how Clinton had a real shot at winning Georgia. And this is months before the Access Hollywood tapes doomed Trump's chances. So let's not jinx ourselves.

Finally, the guy we chose as our champion in this pandemic year is a highly handsy 77 year old, and just keeping him hermetically sealed away from people through November is going to be its own challenge.

Other than that, though, we're doing great in the polls and I DEFY THE GODS THEMSELVES to screw this up