Would the GOP win 40 states with a reasonable national win

[cwh2018]

Simple question assuming a simple 2 horse race with no significant third party spoiler can either party get close to winning 40 states.  Since Bush senior won 40 states in '88 no one has done better than the 30-32 state range.  Given the composition of both parties I can't see the dems getting close to 40 states without a third party spoiler like Kasich in 2020.  It looks like the dems would need to be winning by more than 10 nationally to even think of passing 35 states in a two horse race,never mind 40 states.  Since the individual states have a slight GOP lean my question is could they come close to winning 40 states in 2020 or 2024 if they were to win nationally by for example 6-8 points over the dem- say the 2008 scenario in reverse order.   This is a pretty hypothetical question as I don't see Trump winning by a significant margin in 2020, but more of a question is the potential for the GOP base out there under the right conditions.  For example if Clinton had scraped a narrow win in 2016 and was a weak unpopular president could a GOP candidate win well with an electorate tired of a dem white house.

[RINO Tom]

Let's say Trump loses re-election and a Democrat seriously oversteps with a Democratic Congress.  This is probably the absolute GOP ceiling in 2024 with a strong candidate vs. a weak Democrat that is tied to the unpopular incumbent (who isn't running for re-election):

Democrats still win 12 states.  Also, this includes multiple states barely going Republican that would be VERY hard to flip.

[MT Treasurer]

Let's say Trump loses re-election and a Democrat seriously oversteps with a Democratic Congress.  This is probably the absolute GOP ceiling in 2024 with a strong candidate vs. a weak Democrat that is tied to the unpopular incumbent (who isn't running for re-election):

Democrats still win 12 states, so I am saying no. Also, this includes multiple states barely going Republican that would be VERY hard to flip.

Not a bad map, but I really don’t see VA flipping. NM and CO are more likely, but would still require disastrous political missteps by the Democrats, if you ask me.

[Very Legal & Very Cool]

Let's say Trump loses re-election and a Democrat seriously oversteps with a Democratic Congress.  This is probably the absolute GOP ceiling in 2024 with a strong candidate vs. a weak Democrat that is tied to the unpopular incumbent (who isn't running for re-election):

Democrats still win 12 states, so I am saying no. Also, this includes multiple states barely going Republican that would be VERY hard to flip.

Not a bad map, but I really don’t see VA flipping. NM and CO are more likely, but would still require disastrous political missteps by the Democrats, if you ask me.

I looked at the map and instantly thought all three of those states need to be red.

[Del Tachi]

Donald Trump, who is the worst possible GOP nominee for Virginia, loses the state by roughly 200,000 votes to a ticket that includes the state's popular, incumbent senator and all-of-the-sudden it's gone to Republicans for eternity?

Most other GOP nominees in 2016 - Rubio, Bush, Kasich, etc. - would have easily won Virginia over Clinton in 2016. 

[MT Treasurer]

Donald Trump, who is the worst possible GOP nominee for Virginia, loses the state by roughly 200,000 votes to a ticket that includes the state's popular, incumbent senator and all-of-the-sudden it's gone to Republicans for eternity?

Most other GOP nominees in 2016 - Rubio, Bush, Kasich, etc. - would have easily won Virginia over Clinton in 2016.  

They haven’t won a single statewide race since 2009 (even in 2013 they lost every statewide office), Gillespie (supposedly a much better "fit" for the state) got crushed by 9 last year, Kaine is leading by 20+ points in the polls, the demographic/political trends are absolutely disastrous for the GOP, etc.

[RINO Tom]

Let's say Trump loses re-election and a Democrat seriously oversteps with a Democratic Congress.  This is probably the absolute GOP ceiling in 2024 with a strong candidate vs. a weak Democrat that is tied to the unpopular incumbent (who isn't running for re-election):

Democrats still win 12 states, so I am saying no. Also, this includes multiple states barely going Republican that would be VERY hard to flip.

Not a bad map, but I really don’t see VA flipping. NM and CO are more likely, but would still require disastrous political missteps by the Democrats, if you ask me.

I looked at the map and instantly thought all three of those states need to be red.

Most of the time "ceilings" aren't, like, the most probable situations, you know.

[Politician]

Best-case GOP scenario:

[Orser67]

Trump lost the popular vote by 2 points but won 30 states. A uniform swing of 9 points to the GOP (and btw, I wouldn't call a 7 point win a "reasonable national win", I would call it a near-landslide) would add:

-NH: easy pickup in this scenario
-MN: a tough state for national Republicans given their apparent low-ceiling-but-high-floor, but in this case I think they easily win it
-NV: easy pickup in this scenario
-ME: They haven't won this in years, and it probably trends a bit back towards the Democrats in the next election, but given that Clinton won it by just 3 points, I think the GOP takes it
-CO: This is where things start to get interesting. Colorado is obviously a lean d state at this point, but unless it really swings to the left in 2020, Republicans would win it with a 7-point national victory
-VA: Pretty much the same as Colorado
-NM: This is where you start getting into landslide territory. Republicans did win New Mexico in 2004, but since then New Mexico has pretty much rejected the Republican Party with the exception of Susan Martinez. I think that this would be a tossup in a 7-point Republican victory.

The next states are Oregon and Delaware, each of which Clinton won by about 11 points. It's certainly possible that we could see one of them flip in the way that Indiana did in 2008, but I doubt the GOP would win more than one of these states.

So yeah, I think the GOP would have a tough time winning more than 37 states.