“We are way ahead in the polls, in all the polls,” former President Donald Trump said at several rallies last week as he laid the groundwork for election denial and incited his supporters to make their turnout “too high to manipulate.”

The Republican presidential candidate has spent the weeks leading up to the election playing the role of a boastful braggart and insisting – despite the semi-coherent speeches that make up his marathon speeches – that he is headed for a clear victory, despite the polls which show a mess race against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Something changed on Sunday.

Trump and his top campaign official appeared to break down, abandoning the defiant tone in a brief moment to acknowledge for once that defeat was at stake.

“I guess you could lose, you could lose,” Trump said told ABC News in a telephone interview. “I mean, that happens, right? But I think I have a pretty big lead, but you could say, yeah, yeah, you could lose. Bad things could happen. You know, things happen, but it’s going to be interesting.”

Susie Wiles, his co-campaign manager, made the acknowledgment much more tacit than her unvarnished boss.

In an internal campaign memo receive from Axios – titled “Donald J. Trump Administrative Update” – Wiles used several phrases – “should we be victorious,” “regardless of the outcome of the election” and “God willing” – acknowledging that the campaign is short-handed could be.

The purpose of Wiles' memo was to lay out the monotonous administrative task of halting campaign operations after the election is over, but the tone could hardly be more contrary to Trump's general stance, which includes the consideration that polls he doesn't like should do Be illegal.

If he loses, no quick concession is expected: The Republican National Committee had raised $90 million for recount efforts as of Sept. 30, Federal Election Commission filings show.