To follow up on Rich’s point that, as Trump’s numbers rise nationally, the picture of how he’d win the states he needs becomes clearer, too, I recommend Nate Silver’s piece from last year about how there’s likely no such thing as a ”blue wall” in the Electoral College.
“When commentators talk about the Democrats’ ‘blue wall,’ all they’re really pointing out is that Democrats have had a pretty good run in presidential elections lately,” he explains. People talked about how Republicans had a lock on the Electoral College going into 1992, as well, simply because Republicans had had a good run of presidential elections before that.
If Romney instead of Obama had won the 2012 election by 3.9 percentage points, according to Silver’s number-crunching, a whole lot of states would have tipped into his basket, including Minnesota and Pennsylvania.