If Trump reaches the GE he will be unstoppable

[Jim Lane]

112. I'd consider Trump the underdog but I don't dismiss his chances the way you do.

You write, "There is no conceivable EC map that renders this plausible." Here's one I think is at least plausible: Trump, by continuing his appeals to bigotry and amping up his attacks on trade deals if Clinton is the nominee, surges among white working-class voters. That enables him to flip several Obama states in the Rust Belt -- Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. If he wins them and holds all of Romney's states, he gets precisely 270 electoral votes.

In the standard listings of blue-red-swing states, the states that have gone Democratic in each of the last six presidential elections are often treated as safe for our side (the "Blue Wall&quot . The standard listing, however, assumes a standard Republican candidate. I'm suggesting that Trump might have a better chance of winning a few "Blue Wall" states in the Rust Belt than he would of winning Florida, even though Florida has consistently been close since 2000.

Of the four states I listed, Obama's biggest 2012 margin was in Michigan, at 9.5%. That's not so overwhelming as to be out of reach. From 2008 to 2012, the GOP gained more than that in Indiana, turning a one-point loss into a ten-point win.

Trump has a chance to lead the Republicans to a Goldwater-level debacle, but he also has the chance to pull off a win that would be out of reach for Jeb! or Kasich or any of the other conventional politicians whom he so unexpectedly defeated.