How Trump Can Still Win

              For the last few weeks, ever since the Democrats completed their nominating convention, Donald Trump has looked like a sure loser in this fall’s presidential election.  The Democrats put on a good show, which certainly gave Hillary Clinton a boost, but Trump helped her cause immeasurably by just being a terrible candidate, almost acting as if he wanted to lose in a succession of unforced personal gaffes that included these head-scratchers: criticizing gold star parents; suggesting that gun rights’ advocates might attempt to assassinate Clinton if she tried to dismantle Second Amendment rights; and, for a while, refusing to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan’s candidacy for re-election.

              But now he has a new management team in place and is reading prepared speeches off of tele-prompters instead of delivering rambling rants that had passed for campaign speeches for most of the last year.  And his campaign has raised a sizeable amount of money in a short period of time.  That money will, presumably, be used to air slick TV ads that will, at least minimally, counteract the deluge of ads the Clinton campaign has been running (and will likely continue to run) for months.

              And so, as Labor Day approaches, with debates in the offing, the question must be asked: Can Trump still win the election.  And the answer is that he most definitely can, but it will require the equivalent of drawing to an inside straight with almost all of the cards in the deck already dealt.  In other words, a Trump victory is improbable, maybe even highly improbable, but it isn’t impossible.  In fact, it is entirely conceivable.  Here’s how it could happen.

              The first point favoring a Trump turnaround victory is his opponent, who, despite being far more qualified for the job based on experience and knowledge, is almost as disliked and distrusted as Mr. Trump himself.  Trump needs to remind voters of their significant distaste for Ms. Clinton, and he needs to do it often.  But continuing to call her “crooked Hillary” won’t cut it.  Ad hominem attacks grow old quickly in a presidential campaign, and Trump has already run that silly sobriquet into the ground.

              Instead, Trump needs to hit hard on specifics regarding Clinton.  For example, he needs to attack her decision to support the invasion of Iraq, forcing her to explain that her vote was only to authorize the president to invade if he decided it was the right thing to do.  She will always look bad defending herself on that one (as she does on many other partially valid attacks), which is one of the reasons she is disliked as much as she is.  Hillary Clinton doesn’t defend herself well.  She just isn’t good at it.  And whenever she is in a defensive position, Trump can win that campaign day’s news cycle.

              If he can study the issue enough to be conversant on it, Trump should also attack the appearance of influence peddling inherent in the solicitation and receipt of contributions from foreign governments and foreign leaders to the Clinton Foundation.  That one may be too hard for Trump to grasp, as he has repeatedly shown a complete lack of interest in (and willingness to) study any substantive issue.  But if he would, that problem for Ms. Clinton could get much more serious. 

              Ditto the FBI report on the emails Ms. Clinton stored on a private server while she was secretary of State (and the 33,000 she reportedly destroyed before turning over the balance of them to the investigators).  She has already looked and sounded bad in defending herself and she will most likely continue to do so if she is pressed (as in the upcoming debates).  But Trump must do more than throw out the one line in his stump speech.  He needs to get into the details and actually read the FBI report (again, unlikely, but certainly something he should be capable of doing).

              Apart from these (and other) substantive attacks on Clinton, Trump should take advantage of the start of the “real campaign,” now that the Olympics are finally over and with Labor Day marking the usual point at which most voters actually start to pay attention.  He should present an entirely new image of himself by discarding the crazy ideas (e.g., building a wall that Mexico will pay for, deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, banning entry to the country of anyone from a Muslim dominated country) and instead sounding like a reasonable candidate with serious views and well-thought-out policies.

              Again, this turnaround may almost impossible for a man who is all about bombast and political incorrectness, but that tactic has run its course.  It got him a solid plurality of the Republican base, but it won’t get him the necessary independents and moderate Democrats to win the election.  He needs to sound rational and appear intelligent, meaning he needs to study the real issues and present policy positions that show he knows what he’s talking about.

              And the best chance Trump will have to show this turnaround will be in the debates, when most of the electorate will really be watching and when a fair number of voters will be open to being persuaded (having not really paid serious attention until that point).  If Trump can come across as a legitimate alternative to Clinton in the debates, he will establish a path to victory.

              And then, finally, Trump must educate himself on the Electoral College.  If he does, he will see that he has a very narrow path to 270 electoral votes.  That path requires him to hold all of the states Mitt Romney won in 2012 (amounting to 206) and win another handful that gets him to 270.  The most plausible states to turn from blue to red appear to be Ohio (18), Nevada (6), Iowa (6), Florida (29), and Pennsylvania (20), with the last of those perhaps the toughest to flip.

              It can be done, but the path is very narrow, and the nature of Trump’s campaign will have to be drastically different.  But it is entirely doable, or at least would be doable by a seasoned pol who understands the dynamics and requirements of a presidential campaign.  Trump hasn’t shown himself to be such a person, but if he can become one, this race could get a whole lot closer.

In the end, Hillary Clinton will still probably be the next president, but she shouldn’t start picking her cabinet just yet.