Maybe I have a faulty earpiece, but I believe I hear experts saying Donald Trump is the likely Republican presidential nominee and it’s not completely impossible for him to win a state as deep-blue as Rhode Island.

For perspective: Rhode Island has not backed a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984. And the number “63” tells a story: In 2012, President Obama received 63 percent of the vote while Mitt Romney won three towns (Scituate, East Greenwich, West Greenwich). In 2008, Obama received 63 percent while John McCain won just one town (Scituate). And the latest Brown University poll shows 63 percent of Rhode Islanders hold an “unfavorable” view of Trump. So don't plan the Trump victory parade on Post Road just yet.

Still, you don’t have to be a Trump University graduate to grasp the Super Tuesday math: Trump won Republican primaries in seven states, including neighboring Massachusetts, and now holds a big lead in delegates. “He is the likely Republican nominee,” said Prof. James A. Morone, director of Brown University’s Taubman Center. And here in Rhode Island, the latest Brown poll shows Trump leading with 43 percent of the GOP vote, ahead of Marco Rubio by 18 percentage points.

So, looking ahead to November, allow me to ask a question I never thought I’d ask: Could Trump actually win Rhode Island in the general election? “As a candidate who has defied gravity at every turn, you can’t rule it out, but we also know that it would be pretty unprecedented,” said Cook Political Report senior editor Jennifer E. Duffy, who grew up in Rhode Island. “My guess is he’s not likely to win, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.”

You can’t rule it out because Trump continues to defy political norms when it comes to money, organization and TV ads, instead relying on eye-popping pronouncements that dominate the news cycle, Duffy said. So while she expects Democrat Hillary Clinton to take Rhode Island and doesn’t see Trump winning such a “solidly Democratic state,” she said, “That is a question to ask me again in three months.”

Given Trump’s high negatives, Morone said, “Right now, you would have to say there is no chance of Trump winning Rhode Island, but the big caveat is that he has defied the rules of political gravity since last June.” Both Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, have tapped into the anger felt by “the large number of people left behind in the global economy,” he said. “That's a huge problem in the U.S. and in Rhode Island.”

Indeed, after years of mill closures and high unemployment, Rhode Island is home to more than a few frustrated members of the white working class. “There are a lot of angry voters in Rhode Island,” Duffy said. And both parties have stoked such anger for a long time, she said. “They’ve almost created an environment tailor-made for a guy like Trump, who says anything, giving voice to that anger.”

But rather than “Make America Great Again,” some strains of that anger threaten to “Make America Hate Again.” For instance, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke told his radio audience that voting for Cruz or Rubio rather than Trump would be “treason to your heritage.” And when CNN asked him about Duke’s support, Trump equivocated, saying, “I don't know anything about David Duke, OK?” Trump later blamed a “lousy earpiece” for his replies, saying he’d already disavowed Duke. And Duke said he never formally endorsed Trump.

In any case, perhaps Trump can now reassign the crack team that searched for Obama's long-form birth certificate to bring him up to speed on the hazards of Duke.

Clifford R. Montiero, former president of the NAACP Providence branch, suspects Trump’s earpiece was fine and that he had his eye on the South and Super Tuesday. “He played dumb,” he said. “He needed to condemn Duke in no uncertain terms. He never had a problem expressing himself until it came to this matter because he was pandering to the white racists.”

So could Trump win in Rhode Island? “I doubt it,” Montiero said. “He’s going to have a good showing but not win because too many people will see through him.”

We’ll see.

efitzpat@providencejournal.com

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