An instrumental adviser to Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns, Plouffe calmed worried liberals — whom he sometimes jokingly called “bedwetters” — throughout the fall of that year with his repeated assurances that Hillary Clinton had a “100 percent chance” to win. The day before the election, he predicted a “worst-case” scenario for Clinton was ending up with 324 electoral votes. She got 232. And he dismissed concerns about tightening races in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan: Maybe Clinton would win by just 3 to 5 points, Plouffe assured, instead of 6 to 8…

After spending 2016 pacifying nervous Democrats, Plouffe is now trying to make Democrats nervous, telling anyone who will listen that Trump can win. His Twitter feed has been full of dire warnings: a picture of Trump holding a newspaper reading “TRUMP RE-ELECTED,” and the ominous declaration that “Despite it all he could still win. Make your own plan for activism to make sure it isn’t so.”

Plouffe warns that he thinks Trump will be much stronger this time around with all the advantages of incumbency, an almost singular focus on reelection and a campaign team that will likely be less chaotic than the one that replaced its top leadership three months before the election in 2016. Trump also won’t be outspent like he was last time.