It's easy to call Joe Biden the winner today. Logic dictates it, all polls bar perhaps Iowa, show he leads. Every battleground state Donald Trump needs to win he trails, in some by a margin large enough only the deluded would argue with it.

The pollsters so badly humiliated four years back have reworked their ratings to involve the Trump crowd more prominently, so logic would suggest they couldn’t possibly be that wrong twice.

Covid in America is a mess. In a world where those who have voted have voted for safety and Covid success, it would appear odd that America would be so uniquely different and in such numbers that they have loved watching records being broken , and a couple of hundred thousand die.

Logic would also dictate, and backed up by the polls, that at least a chunk of those who came out last time on the idea that this bloke was different and worth a shot, won't be back given what they’ve seen. Many clearly have buyer's remorse.

Women, especially, have deserted him. He's crass, he's an oaf, he's arguably a sexual predator, he's a liar, he's immersed in any amount of legal activity and dishonest behaviour, much of which will swamp him if he loses today and returns to normal life.

His pathway is narrow and that’s being generous. He has to win Florida, and at least one of those rust belt industrial type states. It would seem most likely Pennsylvania, and collect all the others that should, and did fall his way last time. Basically, he has to have a perfect day.

If you want to mount a case for him, there is a lot in the economy that's not reported here that is actually going well. Manufacturing, just yesterday, is at nearly two-year highs, last week's Q3 bounce-back was massive, homes sales are up, and spending is up. There's a lot of solid material to sell.

The crowds he's getting are sensational. There is something magnetic about him. How many politicians can you name that could get you out in freezing temperatures at midnight to listen to a few one liners and barbs about Biden? But he does it. Those who love him are evangelical and that’s never to be underestimated, especially given it was last time.

But the reason Biden will win is not because Trump can't, because he can, and not because Biden is brilliant, because he isn't. But it's because Trump was an experiment that needed a better run and a bigger tailwind.

If Covid hadn't happened, he would probably be winning today. But it did happen, and so did all the other stuff that’s mired him in controversy, anger, and madness.

Four years ago, he was an eclectic outsider. He was different enough and refreshing enough to be worth a shot. Four years on he's still the same bloke, just weighed down by enough eccentricity, dishonesty, loopiness, and failure to have lost the shine that made the difference.

Part of me wants to be wrong. The Democrats and the left are miserable downtrodden whiners who have never got over their loss. They're disparate rabble with too many extremists.

But, it's their day. They'll hold and gain in the house, they’ll flip the Senate, and they will win the White House.

The Trump era, such as it is, is over.