One of the things that perhaps might lend credence to Trump possibly winning some of those states is the number of ‘normal’ dems that think he might be able to do it. I was surprised when I listened to NPR and a lot of callers were scared of Trump actually beating Hillary because of that. Of course there are also many on the dem side that hope it is Trump because they actually think he is so beatable. So who knows, but it’s not like they have consensus about it.
Freegards
Reagan's biggest hurdle to overcome was that people thought of him as too "scary/extreme". So even though Carter was not popular, they were hesitant to support him. But Reagan ran a very smart general election campaign intended to show voters that he really wasn't all that freaky, and would be responsible. His optimism and non-insulting humor really helped that, as exemplified by his somewhat understated, chuckling "there you go again" line to Carter in the debate.
But I just haven't seen any evidence that Trump is capable of doing the same "ratcheting back/calming" thing that Reagan did so well. So as I said, someone's got to keep him and his Twittering fingers under control if he's going to have a shot.