It looks like it might be a landslide. The bottom is falling out of Donald Trump’s support. Wishlist states like Alaska, Arizona, and Georgia—states that Democrats dared not let themselves dream might competitive—now seem to be in play. An independent candidate running to be President of Utah is getting close to the brass ring. Hillary Clinton may end up with 350 Electoral College votes or more.

Too late, however, Democrats are beginning to realize that winning by substantial margins is not itself enough to claim a mandate to pursue sweeping legislative reform. That will be particularly true if Clinton manages to win the White House by a substantial margin and Republicans retain control of one or both chambers of Congress. That mixed message would (rightly, as the Founders would have had it) yield gridlock. Clinton ran a campaign predicated on the dual notions that her place in the waiting line entitled her to the presidency and that she was not Donald Trump. That’s a winning message, but it does not a mandate make. Unable to conjure up a rationale for Clinton’s presidency, Democrats have taken to mocking Republicans who believe that they have their own obligations to their voters.