AP Photo Opinion Time to Face It: Trump Really Could Win This If Democrats are starting to panic, they should. What else do they have to throw at him?

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.

If you aren’t seriously contemplating the biggest black swan event in American electoral history, you aren’t paying attention.

Fifteen months ago, Donald Trump was a reality-TV star with a spotty business record and a weird penchant for proclaiming he was on the verge of running for president. Now, he’s perhaps a few big breaks and a couple of sterling debate performances away from being elected 45th president of the United States.


Trump has no experience in elected office, and unlike past nonpoliticians elected president, hasn’t won a major war. He barely has a national campaign. He perhaps knows less about public affairs than the average congressman. He has repeatedly advertised his thin-skinned vindictiveness and is trampling on basic political norms, like the convention of candidates releasing their tax returns.

No major political party has ever nominated anyone like this. If Trump were to prevail, it would make Barack Obama’s unlikely rise from unknown state senator to first African-American president of the United States in about four years look like a boringly conventional political trajectory.

Obama seemed to come out of nowhere, but his steps to the presidency — law degree, state office, U.S. senator — were stereotypical. Trump won the Republican nomination despite — or because of? — attributes that would have seemed disqualifying two years ago, such as, to name a few, his personal life, his longtime support for Democrats, his newly minted, hard-to-credit social conservatism, his disdain for Republican orthodoxy, and his basic lack of preparation.

Trump now has a legitimate shot at winning the general because he got the lucky draw of at least the second-worst presidential nominee in recent memory and, pending how she fares over the next two months, perhaps the worst.

All it took for Trump to wipe away most of Hillary’s lead, built at an excellent convention and on Trump’s subsequent weeks of self-inflicted wounds, was acting like a somewhat normal presidential candidate. Have a meeting with a foreign leader. Give some policy speeches. Read from a teleprompter at rallies. Use his NPR voice when appropriate.

None of this required strategic genius, only a decision not to throw away the election with repeated episodes of self-indulgent stupidity. Throw on top of that the FBI’s document dump before Labor Day and Hillary’s near-collapse at New York’s 9/11 memorial, and the race may be headed toward a tie nationally.

Democrats should be feeling a creeping sense of panic:

They are trying to win with a candidate who is loathed and distrusted and has few redeeming qualities. As Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs pointed out, corrupt and dishonest politicians are often entertaining, and dull politicians are usually earnest and honest. Hillary manages to be boring and corrupt. If she decided to sit out the rest of the campaign and rely on surrogates to hit the trail, she might do no worse and perhaps better.

No one can be certain that her health is what the campaign says it is. If Hillary did have a more serious condition than allergies and walking pneumonia, does anyone believe the Clintons would be forthright about it? Even if nothing else ails her, if Clinton has another episode in public like the one on Sept. 11, the bottom might fall out.

President Obama probably can’t close Hillary’s enthusiasm gap. For entirely understandable reasons (dull, inauthentic and old), the Obama coalition isn’t excited by Clinton. When Obama hit the hustings, we were reminded of what an adept campaigner he is, but there is no evidence Obama ever successfully transferred enthusiasm for himself to another candidate.

If the kitchen sink hasn’t killed off Trump, what else is there? The Clinton campaign has already used his greatest hits of most offensive statements in countless TV ads. I was appalled that Trump mocked a disabled reporter, but even I am sick of seeing the clip every other time I turn on the TV. If none of this has sunk Trump and the race gets even closer, what’s left that is going to have a new and different shock value?

A compelling Trump debate performance could change perceptions of his suitability to be commander in chief. Hillary is trouncing Trump on this attribute by a 2-to-1 margin in the Washington Post/ABC poll. If Trump shows up and seems plausible during the biggest moment of the campaign, he could vastly improve his standing on this basic readiness question.

All this said, Hillary still has an advantage. Presumably, she won’t be as snake-bit the rest of the campaign as she has been the past two weeks. She has a campaign and Trump doesn’t, and that must count for something. Demographics favor her. But if Trump can hoist himself over the bar of acceptability, he might give the voting public enough permission to make this the change election it is naturally inclined to be.

In the primaries, many people (including me) understood intellectually Trump’s odds of winning the nomination, but still had trouble accepting it because initially it seemed so unimaginable. There is even more resistance to taking on board the idea of him as the next president.

Today, in the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus forecast, Trump has a 37 percent chance of winning. This means the odds of him becoming president are about equal to Daniel Murphy of the Washington Nationals, currently hitting .347, getting a base hit in any single at-bat. No one is shocked when Murphy does. He got two hits on Tuesday night.

A Trump victory may not be likely, but it isn’t far-fetched. And, no, stranger things haven’t happened.