I don’t actually think that’s hopium. The vibe I’m getting from everything I see and read is that the Harris campaign is feeling cautiously optimistic. That doesn’t mean that it’s in the bag but I think it certainly means they aren’t seeing anything that would lead us to believe that Trump has it in the bag, contrary to what the MAGA crowd is saying.
Again, this feels like 2012 to me. Romney and his people were measuring the drapes at this point. The polls were very close and Karl Rove was strutting around telling everyone that it was over.
On election night, we had this silly scene (which happened to make Megyn Kelly’s career.)
They simply could not believe that Obama had won because the polls were close and they’d convinced themselves that they couldn’t lose. After Trump came along in 2016, many of them convinced themselves that they can never lose.
Obviously, we have no idea if this will go our way. We got schooled in 2016 too, after all. I was certainly convinced that Clinton would win because I couldn’t imagine how anyone could vote for that miscreant. We all know what happened.
But I don’t think we have to assume that every close election is going to go their way either. It didn’t in 2012, 2018, 2020 and 2022. Maybe they’re due. But maybe the real truth is that 2016 was just a fluke because we had a close election with the first woman nominee whom a lot of people didn’t like and a TV celebrity who captured the imagination of a large enough segment of the population to eke out a win. I’m not saying that’s the case but it’s as easily proven as the idea that Trump is a juggernaut who can’t lose — when we know that he can.
Keep the faith.