Clinton’s top campaign officials note there are 19 states that have voted Democratic in each of the last six presidential elections that account for a total of 242 electoral-college votes. Add in New Mexico, whose population is 40 percent Latino and which has gone Democratic in five of the past six contests, and that is 247 of the 270 votes needed to get to the White House.

“It’s a massive, massive electoral advantage,” said Mitch Stewart, who served as battleground-states director for Obama in 2012 and who estimated that Republicans begin 2016 with closer to 191 mostly safe electoral votes. “Even if you take out Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, it’s basically like a Florida headstart.”…

That means Clinton could conceivably win the White House while losing Ohio (18 electoral votes), Colorado (9), Virginia (13), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15) and Iowa (6) — all states that Obama carried twice, besides North Carolina, which he won only in 2008. Those are the seven states, along with Florida, that Clinton’s super PAC is advertising in. And with Trump’s heated rhetoric about Hispanics, Democrats see their support consolidating in fast-growing and increasingly Latino western states such as Nevada and Colorado…

The urgent task for Trump, then, is to bust up the blue wall. So far, his campaign has signaled it is focused on most seriously contesting three of its states: Michigan (16 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (20) and Wisconsin (10).