From tonight’s Politico:

 

IS IT OVER? Here is what everyone in Washington is thinking but does not want to say out loud: President Donald Trump is going to lose this election in 28 days, probably by a large margin.

A growing number of insiders, including many Republicans, are starting to venture — privately — that this outcome is likely to be clear on Election Night, not days or weeks later.

And Trump’s collapse is likely to take Republican control of the Senate with him.

Is this a certainty? No. We all remember 2016. But the system is blinking red:

— Biden leads nationally by 9 points in the Real Clear Politics average and has passed the critical 50 percent threshold. Some recent national polls have been eye-popping: 14 points in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and 16 points in the latest CNN poll.

— Biden’s lead has been growing since the first debate, an event Republicans pointed to as the key event where Trump might turn things around.

— The crucial states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which was one of the few good polling states for Trump, have all been trending clearly toward Biden.

— All of the polls behind this assessment were completed before today, when the president abruptly abandoned negotiations on a Covid relief bill, which could have provided an economic lifeline to millions of Americans.

This is the conventional wisdom, though it is rarely said publicly. It’s been expressed by a number of glum Republicans we’ve talked to since the debate and the subsequent news of the White House becoming a Covid hot spot. “Today feels like the election’s over,” a veteran Republican strategist said Sunday.

But again, we all remember 2016. So there is a quiet conspiracy to emphasize the uncertainty and stress to readers and viewers that anything could still happen.