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 Polls show Trump beating his Republican rivals with about 50
percent support versus roughly 20 percent each for Senator Ted Cruz
of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich. The New York businessman
insists he is the only one of the three remaining candidates who can
attract enough new voters to win states in the Nov. 8 general
election that have long been key Democratic strongholds.
Trump has said repeatedly in interviews and on the campaign trail
that he could rewrite the electoral map to put historically
Democratic states such as New York and Pennsylvania in play in a
general election. As he describes it, he has crossover appeal that
is strongest in the populous northeastern United States, where
social attitudes are more liberal than in the deeply religious South
and Midwest.
Yet polls and voter-registration records suggest Trump's odds of
beating a Democrat in any Northeastern state, let alone New York,
are much lower than, say, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton
winning a fortune in a Trump-owned casino.
 Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, said in an interview
that even though he hasn't started competing in the general
election, Trump has an advantage in New York because he's well known
and employs people in the state. He cited Trump's strong primary
performances in Massachusetts and New Hampshire as evidence of his
popularity in New England.
"What you have with Donald Trump is a candidate who is the only
candidate in this race that will actually have an opportunity to win
states that Mitt Romney didn't win," Lewandowski said, referring to
the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, who is also a former
Massachusetts governor.
Pennsylvania has 4 million registered Democrats and 3.1 million
Republicans, but only 62,000 Democrats have switched sides since the
beginning of 2016, state data show.
New York, with 5.8 million registered Democrats and 2.7 million
Republicans, has shown virtually no shift, with the gap between
registered voters of the two parties holding fairly steady between
2015 and 2016, according to state records. If Trump has crossover
appeal, it's not yet apparent.
The strong Democratic tilt in the Northeast corridor - a region
stretching from Maine to Maryland - has made it much harder for
Republicans to win at the national level. A conservative has only
won one state in the Northeast in the 20-year span from 1992-2012,
when George W. Bush eked out a victory in New Hampshire in 2000.
New York has not gone Republican in a general election since 1984
when Reagan won 49 of 50 states in a historic landslide.
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Trump touts his support with working-class voters, especially
unionized workers. His biggest advocate in New York, the Buffalo
businessman and former gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, said
he expects Trump to attract new voters in November who support his
call for tariffs on imported goods from China, Mexico and other
countries that have cut into the U.S. manufacturing base.
Yet national polls suggest Trump lacks the crossover appeal with the
independents and disaffected Democrats he frequently touts: A
Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 62 percent of Americans view Trump
unfavorably. Among women, who make up a slight majority of
general-election voters, 67 percent view Trump unfavorably,
according to the poll.
Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, a Republican who served as
secretary of homeland security under George W. Bush, called Trump "a
very divisive person."
"I just don’t think his personality, nor his style, nor his point of
view – whatever that is – will appeal to the kind of Republican and
Democrat support he will need in Pennsylvania," said Ridge, who
supports Kasich.
Trump has been a lightning rod for controversy, calling for Muslims
to be banned from entering the United States, referring to people
illegally crossing into the country from Mexico as "rapists" and
suggesting women who get illegal abortions should be punished.
Even New Hampshire, with a close divide between Republicans and
Democrats that makes it rare among Northeastern states, would be a
long shot for Trump in a general election, predicted Dave Carney, a
Republican strategist in the state.
"When upwards of 75 percent of women are repulsed by you, that's the
largest voting bloc there is. Whether you're a New York woman or an
Ohio woman, it makes all these little talking points irrelevant,"
Carney said.
(Editing by Caren Bohan and Leslie Adler)
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