Trump has the option to win Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Based on what? I mean, I know you don't like Trump, but it's not like he's gonna lose Kansas or Missouri. Let's be real.
trump is going to depress turnout in heavily-religious ancestrally-Republican southwest Missouri a great deal. It may not be enough for him to lose the state, but it would be very hotly contested between him and Hillary. (He'll have lost anyway and Hillary will just be trying to run up the score at that point, of course).
Of course. In your Trump-hating dream land.
I'm aware that national polls are next to useless at this point, but RCP has Trump down 11 points against Clinton. That's obscene, and it reflects that fact that he's alienated massive amounts of voters. Especially Hispanics, which could very well become another African American-style solid Democratic bloc if Trump gets the nomination and continues sprouting off his insanity in their direction.
I would hazard that the very fact of Trump's candidacy will have done damage to the GOP nominee, whomever he is, among Hispanic voters. Do we really think that Cruz or even Kasich is going to look appealing to Hispanic voters when they're running under the banner of the party that almost nominated Trump?
I know demography isn't destiny, but I've been digging through the numbers, and I think people are understating what an uphill climb this election is going to be for Republicans. They seem to have largely maxed out the white vote in 2012 (it's difficult for me to see it going more than 60-40, though I could certainly be wrong), and if you held everything else the same and changed the demographics from 2012 to 2016, Romney would have lost by an extra point.
Republicans already get almost 90% of their votes from white voters. They've made the judgment that they can't pick up more votes than they'd lose by pivoting away from them, so they've got to either grow their share of the electorate (which was already outsize to begin with) or grow their support among them (which was at historic highs already in 2012).
