During a recent luncheon at the glitzy Hunt & Fish Club on West 44th Street, in Manhattan, Frank Luntz, the renowned political consultant and pollster, offered a group of influential Wall Street bankers—a deep-pocketed array of politically connected hedge-fund managers, finance vice-chairmen, and private-equity mini-moguls—a shocking dose of reality about the 2016 presidential election. While playing a video that documented some of Donald Trump’s greatest hits—his dismissal of Marco Rubio as “Little Marco,” for instance, and the suggestion that neurosurgeon Ben Carson had “a pathological temperament”—Luntz stopped the tape.

Luntz has continuously noted that he has no preference in this election, but he pointedly explained that he had never before seen a politician like Trump. He then walked through the litany of the Trump horribilis: how he had made fun of the physical disability of a New York Times reporter; how he called Mexicans rapists and said that John McCain wasn’t a war hero; and how he suggested that Carson had the same traits as a child molester. And yet Trump was moving ever closer to becoming the presidential nominee of the Republican Party.

It was one thing for the American people and the media to misjudge Trump. But how could Wall Street, which often accurately foresees everything from the price of a barrel of oil to the price of a share of Google, have missed this phenomenon?

Indeed, the travails of Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge-fund manager at SkyBridge Capital, are a useful Baedeker to Wall Street’s collective journey through the minefield of the 2016 election. Scaramucci, an avowed but moderate Republican, was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Scott Walker, the controversial Republican governor of Wisconsin. When Walker quit the presidential race last September, Scaramucci switched his support—and his ability to corral significant political donations—to Jeb Bush. Then Bush dropped out of the race, in February.

Now, the Mooch, as he is affectionately known on the Street, is left scratching his head, having underestimated Trump from the start. He shared his frustration with the lunch crowd at the Hunt & Fish Club, of which he is a part owner. “I’m going to say one last thing to the Democrats here, because I really don’t want Trump to be president, so I want you to listen very carefully, O.K.?” he said. “He was underestimated by Walker and his team. He was mis-underestimated—which is a George W. Bush word and which doesn’t exist—he was mis-underestimated by the Jeb Bush team. Now he’s been completely mis-underestimated by the entire Republican Party. And when she”—referring to Hillary Clinton—“talks about him, she sounds and smells like she’s already underestimating him. So I’m just giving you guys a heads up. Do not underestimate the guy.”

The Mooch, who also hosts the revival of the Wall Street Week television show on the Fox Business Network, said he now believes that Trump could indeed be president. “I didn’t believe that three months ago,” he continued. “Listen, I ran out of holidays. I said on TV he was going to be out on Labor Day. I said he was going to be out on Thanksgiving. I said he was going to be out on Christmas. I ran out of goddamned holidays!”

For his part, Luntz said that Wall Streeters could be forgiven for mis-underestimating Trump. After all, they have had little interaction with the people who now support him. His supporters don’t wear nice suits with expensive ties. They may eat at hunting and fishing clubs, but not ones that serve a Kosher rib eye for $61.