Trump’s Path to Victory Is Starting to Look Very Real

The week before last I looked at Donald Trump’s likely “path to victory” and adjudged it as “a tightrope walk down an insanely narrow path to 270 electoral votes.” I’d now take out the adjective insanely and maybe even suggest it’s a walk along a balance beam rather than a tightrope. As the popular-vote margin separating Clinton and Trump gradually shrinks, putting together a map of states Trump might carry involves less conjecture about where he might make gains and more confidence that he might be able to consolidate gains he has already made.

Something similar has happened in state polling, with a subtle but important difference: What looked a couple of weeks ago like a long wall of states in which Trump needed to overcome a long-standing Clinton lead has gotten shorter. This is most dramatically shown in the state-by-state projections from Daily Kos (a pro-Democratic but, if anything, rather impressively pessimistic outlet), which now gives Trump an advantage not only in the previously red but blue-trending states of Arizona and Georgia, but also in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio. Add all that up with the states everyone expects Trump to carry and he’s at 259 electoral votes.

But lately Upstate has gone through a serious depression, and many people are dependent on government handouts. Not sure whether they will vote their conscience (Trump) or their pocketbook (Clinton).

I just spent a week in update NY and I saw several Trump signs around, not one for Hillary. For what that's worth.

I think that clip of Clinton’s collapse will be seen by history as a seminal event in the campaign.

I just glanced at the stills and then moved n, but this a.m. I watched the video and it seemed to me that she stiffened up just as she went into the van - that looked more like a seizure than anything else.

The other thing that’s telling in the video is seen if you get curious about the bald guy who grabs Hillary’s right arm and boosts/drags her into the van. If you replay the vid several times to backtrack, you realize that he starts out a good 10 yards from Hillary, facing away from her and managing to look invisible, he is so casual. When the van arrives and the door starts to open, he casually but very efficiently moves along the van, one step past Hillary, then a 270° turn - and just like that he is boosting then dragging Hillary into the van.
Nobody does that, that smoothly, the first time. That pneumonia claim is a con, you can tell that that was not the first rodeo. Smooth as glass. “Nothing to see here” - until suddenly there is nothing to see, it’s all over.

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