The failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has led to speculation that he is headed for a victory of “landslide” proportions in November.

“The election, for all intents and purposes, appears to be over,” declared a commentary at the Spectator after Trump survived a shooting Saturday in western Pennsylvania. “Now more than ever, Trump is headed for a landslide victory in November.”

Photographs of Trump bloodied and pumping his fist in the air “are already galvanizing Republican hopes that voters will further rally behind him for a landslide victory in November,” the French news service Agence-France Press reported Monday from Washington.

Such conjecture is premature — even risky, given the prevailing volatile state of American politics. Other narrative-disrupting developments are not implausible, given the long history of October and November surprises in presidential campaigns of the past. Restraint is advisable in making predictions more than 100 days before an election.

Still , even before Trump was targeted by a 20-year-old would-be assassin, forecasts of a “landslide” were in circulation, emanating from diverse sources in response to stark evidence of President Biden’s age-related infirmity. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, said in an interview on CNN last week that Trump “is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a........

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