And 99% of the time it would have been right, and it also would have been right if the election had been held 11 days before it actually was. The odds of two Black Swan level October surprises in consecutive elections are minuscule.
Barring the Dem nominee turning out to have murdered someone, Trump will lose.
Lets just play a quick hypothetical based on some not altogether unrealistic possibilities:
- Economy is still churning along without any major downturns.
- Russia investigation doesn't actually show enough clear cut improprieties to overcome Republican intransigence and tribal bitterness. Worse yet, Democrat's attempt to punish Trump on clear cut obstruction of justice accusations following Mueller's report leads to a bitter partisan stalemate that leads to Clinton style investigation fatigue on the moderate side of either party.
- After a 2018 wave election, congressional dysfunction and poorly received compromise legislation once again saps enthusiasm of Democratic party voters on the left and momentum is no longer going strongly in one direction.
- Maybe Trump even signs a bi-partisan ACA fix that takes the Dems most powerful issue off the table for them in 2020.
- After a bitter primary of 10-15 nominees the Democrats push out the other side a Sanders style candidate because he captures enough of a niche that gives him a Trump like slight advantage amongst a field that is mostly vying for the same marketshare of the party. Or they end up with another boring ho hum candidate that struggles again to find a cohesive message to excite Democratic turnout against Trumps all-out nationalist "Keep America Great" messaging, and "I'm not such a bad guy, look at the economy" messaging.
I'm just saying, I think there are plenty of realistic scenarios where Trump can end up getting another term.