Still, there were reservations that Oz’s head was perhaps too far in the clouds, or up his ass. Of the three possible Great Lakes states—Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—with one absolutely required for a Trump Electoral College win, Oz analyzed that Michigan was the likeliest. Why?

“Candor,” Oz said. “Trump’s candor.”

“Candor?” said one incredulous campaign staffer. “Not immigration, or taxes, or jobs? Candor? What the fuck does that even mean?”

In strong measure, the optimism that had grown inside the Trump campaign over the last two weeks and that was filling the war room at the EEOB on November 3, and the rapid-response room at HQ in Rosslyn, and the more elite war room in the White House Map Room, was Oczkowski’s. His models were clear—as had been the case in 2016, the Democrats had stalled, and Trump was fast coming up from behind. They were going to win.

Nearby was Gary Coby, the online fundraising point person—portly and bespectacled, missing his usual camouflage MAGA hat (Coby was being hailed by Kushner as being the true MVP of both campaigns for his ability to raise obscene amounts of money and perhaps also for making obscene amounts for himself). Mike Hahn, who ran the campaign’s social media—the hyperaggressive finger behind the ubiquitous Team Trump Twitter account—was at the horseshoe desk next to Justin Clark, the deputy campaign manager and lawyer, buttoned up and by the numbers, who oversaw Election Day ops. Then there was Matt Morgan, the campaign’s general counsel, who had come over from the Pence team, and Meadows, Stepien, and Miller.

A more typical Election Night war room would have had, by early evening, the beginnings of a great litter of pizza boxes and beer bottles, but there was tonight a self-conscious effort to observe White House decorum, with everybody anxiously policing their own trash.

As the first polls closed—parts of Indiana and Kentucky in the Eastern Time zone closed at 6 p.m.; Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, and the other parts of Indiana and Kentucky in Central Time closed at seven o’clock—the Map Room got more crowded. There were no masks and no social distancing. The president’s sons Don Jr. and Eric, and Eric’s wife, Lara, pushed into the tight crowd. Tony Ornato, who had been uniquely promoted from the Secret Service into a Trump White House political job, was in the room, too. Now there was Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, in a double-breasted blazer; Stephen Miller, in a double-breasted suit; Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary; Ronna McDaniel; Laura Ingraham, the Fox News anchor; and Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News personality—“the Judge,” as Trump invariably greeted her, because she was once a New York State judge and now played one on television—who, by early evening, was already on unstable feet. Rudy Giuliani wandered in and out.