Mostly the press wanted to know who had paid for Bobulinski’s private plane.

Oh, and then Bobulinski lost the phones with the Biden messages, the only “proof” for any of his claims (“proof” now conveniently beyond scrutiny). They were in a toiletry bag and … somebody put it down. (Ten Trump aides searched the debate auditorium and surrounding areas, finally finding the phones in the parking garage.)

Months later, Trump would still be citing postelection polls that found that 1 out of 6 Biden voters would have had serious doubts about their vote if they had only known about Tony Bobulinski—if only the media hadn’t protected the Bidens.

And yet who is to say that the president’s determination to sully Hunter Biden—indeed, his absolute belief that the Bidens were among the most corrupt political families of all time—even in the face of a dubious media, didn’t have some effect.

Something did. The polls were rising.

The calamitous nature of the Trump campaign, handicapped by both candidate and organization—here was an incumbent president who, inconceivably, was being outspent down the home stretch by nearly three to one—helped convince liberals that a landslide was coming for the Democrats. They would take the White House and the Senate and would vastly expand their House majority.

But, equally, with sudden movement in the numbers, the Trump team—given that you just never knew what was going to happen when Donald Trump was involved, and with calamity always the background to their victories—was far from giving up on its own hope for a landslide.

Suddenly, even in the face of COVID, you had Trump rallies in the final days of the campaign showing new, unmistakable enthusiasm—crazy stuff! Four, five, six rallies a day—all giving Trump a druglike high and, more than any polls or data analysis, a deep sense of the political landscape and a conviction, not something he had ever really wavered from, that he was absolutely going to win.

His last rally was in Grand Rapids, the same place it was before Election Day 2016.

“Who has voted so far? Has anyone voted?”

Tepid response.

“Okay, good. Because you’re saving it, right? You’re saving it for Tuesday? Right? No, we’re cool. We’re going to have a red wave—they call it the great red wave—like nobody’s ever seen before. Like nobody’s ever seen.”

His closest campaign staffers were still hesitant—few had illusions that this was anything but the most cursed and hapless campaign in history. And yet, seeing the numbers move and the crowds build gave them a new sense that they might in fact make it, that, if only they had a few more days or a week more, they could surely get there.

From an internal campaign memo days out from the end: