First, the polls that have been conducted since the release of the tape of Trump bragging about committing sexual assault have shown Hillary Clinton widening her national lead, which now averages around seven points. As a point of reference, at this point in 2012 the margin between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was around half a point; in 2008, Obama led John McCain by 7 points at this stage, and won by the same margin.

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Second, Trump is not only still dealing with the fallout from that tape, but is likely to continue to be battered by what we might call reinforcing scandal addenda, stories that aren’t big enough to be major scandals in themselves, but are of the same type and therefore keep the original scandal from fading from people’s minds.

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So today, Buzzfeed reports:

Four women who competed in the 1997 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant said Donald Trump walked into the dressing room while contestants — some as young as 15 — were changing…Three other women, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of getting engulfed in a media firestorm, also remembered Trump entering the dressing room while girls were changing. Two of them said the girls rushed to cover their bodies, with one calling it “shocking” and “creepy.”

This follows on the news that Trump bragged to Howard Stern that he would go backstage at the Miss USA pageant when contestants were dressing, and no one could stop him because he owned the pageant. A former Miss USA contestant has confirmed this, telling a local news channel: “He just came strolling right in. There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked…Who do you complain to? He owns the pageant. There’s no one to complain to. Everyone there works for him.” Democrats and Republicans all seem to agree that more of these stories will emerge in the coming days.

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Third, Trump has declared war on the Republican establishment, including many figures like Paul Ryan and John McCain who are popular within the party. This poisonous internecine battle is bad for both sides. It gives moderate Republicans even more permission to vote against Trump (or not vote in the presidential race at all), and encourages ardent Trump supporters not to support down-ballot Republicans.

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Fourth, Trump is retreating even further into a self-reinforcing bubble. It seems that has already happened internally, since no one with any sense could possibly be advising Trump that the way to win is to attack Bill Clinton’s sexual history. Meanwhile, Trump has given up doing interviews on anything but friendly media outlets. That may limit the number of gaffes he commits, but it also deprives him of the ability to speak directly to undecided voters; suffice it to say that he has the “Hannity” audience pretty well locked up already. Nearly the entirety of the Trump campaign now consists of these friendly interviews, lashing out on Twitter, and rallies in which Trump speaks only to his most rabid fans and serves them up the red meat they desire.

Fifth, Trump is apparently becoming consumed with the idea that everything is rigged against him, from the polls to the media to the election itself. As those polls continue to show him trailing — and especially if he falls even further behind — Trump is likely to become even more insistent that the whole thing is a sham. That talk could have the effect of depressing turnout among his supporters, some of whom could come to see getting to the polls as pointless.

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Sixth, Trump has almost no ground operation to speak of, while Clinton has a vast network of field offices, organizers, and volunteers. Most political professionals believe that a good ground game won’t turn a big loss into a big win, but it can get you a few extra points on election day — points Trump can’t afford to lose. This imbalance means that the polls may actually be understating Clinton’s lead.

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Put all that together, and it’s a rather daunting picture. It’s also important to realize that the kind of advice Trump was getting months ago — Be more presidential! Reach out to minorities! — is useless now, not only because Trump has no interest in following it, but because it’s simply too late. In the limited time he has left, Trump is doing absolutely nothing to achieve what ought to be his most important goal, which is to persuade people who haven’t already decided to support him that they should.

Indeed, his entire campaign is just a Trump rally writ large: preaching only to the converted, giving them what they want with an increasingly vulgar and anti-democratic flavor, and repelling the very voters without whom he simply cannot win.

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So what would it actually take to turn the race around? Nothing conventional will do it. Trump can’t just make some improvements here and there, change his affect, stop insulting reporters so much, and try to run a more efficient campaign. It’s too late for that.

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Even some dramatic real-world event like an enormous terrorist attack wouldn’t change the race — in fact, it would probably help Clinton. Polls show Clinton with a significant advantage on the question of who voters think would make a better commander-in-chief, and when it comes to handling terrorism, she and Trump are rated about equally (though some polls show her with a significant lead on that question as well). And if something awful did happen, it’s a good bet that Trump’s reaction wouldn’t provide much reassurance that he can be steady in a crisis.

That leaves one possibility, just one thing that could enable Trump to win. It would have to be a Clinton scandal — but not an ordinary one. No, it would have to be the biggest Clinton scandal since Monica Lewinsky, or maybe even bigger, something so earth-shattering that it would move large numbers of Democrats to abandon her for Donald Trump.

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It’s almost impossible to imagine what could produce a scandal of that magnitude. A videotape showing Clinton shooting Vince Foster? Documents showing that she worked with Osama bin Laden to plan and carry out the 9/11 attacks? Definitive proof that, as Trump friend Alex Jones alleges, she is literally a demon sent by Satan to destroy us all?