WHILE DEMOCRATS FRET, SOME REPUBLICANS OBVIOUSLY THINK TRUMP IS OVERREACHING

Most Democrats now seem to believe that the party is doomed and that President Trump is on a glide path to reelection -- which is why this Kyle Smith column in the New York Post is ridiculous:

Election Night 2020 is going to be like Groundhog Day for Democrats

... Get ready to see a lot of stuff you’ve seen before. First there will be denial: “Uh-uh. No way. Can you check the numbers again? That can’t be right.”

Desperate for evidence, the Dems will move on to the next phase: Voter fraud! Diabolical machine errors! Russian hacking! All of this will be given a thorough scourging. Any wisp of a rumor of a hint of a shred of evidence that any of these things happened, regardless of whether any of them happened on a scale sufficient to determine the outcome, will be the subject of screaming headlines and glaring chyrons.

Nahhh. Unless every late October poll shows the Democratic nominee up by double digits nationwide -- and up by similar margins in states with 270 electoral votes -- Democrats will assume that doom is a likely outcome. There hasn't been a double-digit presidential blowout since 1984, and it's extremely unlikely that there could be one this year given the rabid loyalty of the Trump cult, so Democratic voters will assume calamity is inevitable even if Nate Silver is giving their nominee an 85% chance of victory. (Perhaps especially if that's the case.) Most Democrats right now believe that Bernie would alienate centrists, Buttigieg would alienate blacks, Bloomberg would alienate Bernie voters, a brokered convention would alienate everyone, and Trump will hack the voting machines anyway, while Democrats will be the Iowa caucus stumblebums all the way to November. I don't see anyone who's optimistic.

The only people I see right now who think the Democrats could have a good election are Republicans, like this group of senators:

A handful of Republican senators tried to stop President Trump from firing Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union who testified in the House impeachment hearings....

The senators were concerned that it would look bad for Mr. Trump to dismiss Mr. Sondland and argued that it was unnecessary, since the ambassador was already talking with senior officials about leaving after the Senate trial, the people said. The senators told White House officials that Mr. Sondland should be allowed to depart on his own terms, which would have reduced any political backlash....

Among the Republicans who warned the White House was Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who after voting to acquit Mr. Trump said she thought he had learned a lesson. Others included Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Martha McSally of Arizona and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Why did these senators feel the need to go racing off to A-list New York Times reporters (Peter Baker, Michael Schmidt, and Maggie Haberman) to tell them about this exercise in futility if Trump is triumphant and Democrats are doomed? Apparently Collins, Tillis, and McSally, all up for reelection this year in purple states, don't quite believe that Trump's currently improved poll numbers will necessary hold up over the next nine months. Apparently Ron Johnson isn't persuaded that Trump is certain to win a second time in the crucial state of Wisconsin, where the most recent Morning Consult poll shows Trump at 43% approval and 53% disapproval (Civiqs has Trump at 46%/52%).

Maureen Dowd tells us today that, especially after Iowa, "a master class in Democratic dysfunction ... Democrats should be scared to death watching the president play to thuggish type, re-enacting the chilling final payback scenes of 'The Godfather,' when Michael Corleone took out all his enemies." Many rank-and-file Democrats seem to agree. Oddly, though, Senators Collins, Tillis, McSally, and Johnson aren't nearly as certain about what happens next.