The bottoming-out of Donald Trump’s campaign, and the obvious difficulties he will have rehabilitating it, have made the unthinkable thinkable.

Until this past week, political observers commonly assumed partisan GOP gerrymandering after the 2010 midterm, and the geographic clustering of liberal voters in urban enclaves, had placed the House of Representatives out of Democratic reach until at least 2022.

These structural factors serve as a massive buffer for Republicans who can lose the popular vote in the landslide and still maintain control of the House. In 2012, Democratic House candidates garnered a million more votes than Republicans, but Republicans retained a 234-201 majority. Most election analysts believe Democrats would have to win the overall House vote by seven or eight percent in order to gain a bare majority.

Thanks to Trump, we are closing in on that spread.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told her members last week that if the election were held that day, they would win a majority.