Donald Trump is flirting with electoral disaster.
Based on the polling, there was a best and worst case scenario for Trump in the race against Hillary Clinton. Trump was competitive in battleground states like Ohio and Florida, with the potential of putting Pennsylvania in play, but he was underperforming in characteristically Republican states like Arizona, Georgia and Utah.
The best case scenario for Trump, which seemed plausible as recently as September, was that he would hold all the Mitt Romney states from four years ago while flipping several battlegrounds won by Barack Obama.
When Colorado was in play and Trump led in the polling averages for both Ohio and Florida, he had a decent shot of pulling this off. Even then, Pennsylvania remained elusive, but a month ago he was arguably in a better position than Romney in 2012.
But a catastrophe for Trump was also always on the table. That would involve losing one or more Romney 2012 states while failing to pick up the battlegrounds — perhaps nearly getting shut out, as Romney himself did last time around.
Now on the eve of the final presidential debate and less than a month away from the election, the worst case scenario seems more plausible. Not only is Clinton ahead nationally. She has regained the momentum in the swing states while Trump remains at risk in a number of red states.
Republicans are still worried about Arizona. Trump’s in a dead heat with Clinton and independent conservative Evan McMullin in Utah. He’s down 4 in the Washington Post/ABC News poll in Georgia. More than one poll shows Trump with a low single-digit lead in Texas.
The more swing states Trump has in play, the more paths he has to 270 and the more flexibility he has with traditionally Republican-leaning states. And when it comes to the red states, with the exception of Nebraska, which awards electoral votes by congressional district, all that matters is not losing any. Winning Utah by 0.5 points or 50 points yields the same number of electoral votes.
But Ohio and Iowa are at this time the only battleground states where Trump still leads in the RealClearPolitics polling average and he could drop one or more red state. Trump can’t afford either of these things.
It’s still possible that some middle ground before the best and worst case scenarios happens and if a Trump loss doesn’t look much worse than Romney’s. But based on his current trajectory, he could also be heading for the most lopsided loss in the Electoral College in decades.
Trump has one more debate to turn things around.
