This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday. You’d be forgiven for sensing a disconnect between perceived reality and the political rhetoric coming out of Joe Biden’s high command this weekend. It’s not an accident. Even as national polls show Biden leading President Donald Trump in head-to-head surveys by ever-widening margins, there are still viable paths towards a second term for the President when the election ends on Nov.