Donald Trump’s team has always maintained that their path to victory ran through the Rust Belt.

Since the Democratic National Convention in Philly, though, Hillary Clinton has widened her lead in the polls.

The past six surveys (Suffolk, PPP, F&M, Susquehanna, Quinnipiac and NBC) have shown her up by nine, four, ten, ten and eleven points respectively.

As a result, Nate Silver recently categorized Pennsylvania as part of Clinton’s “firewall” and Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved the commonwealth from “Lean Democratic” to “Likely Democratic”.

The GOP candidate is so shocked at this news that he asserted that he’ll only lose PA if the Democrats cheat.

When you take a look at all the numbers, though, perhaps this news shouldn’t be so surprising.

FiveThirtyEight has collected 22 polls that have been taken in Pennsylvania since March. 20 of the 22 had Clinton in the lead, another showed a tie and just one had Trump ahead.

Meanwhile, the RealClearPolitics and Huffington Post averages have never had the Republican nominee in the lead.

The one silver lining for the GOP has been their voter registration gains but as we’ve noted they’re likely the result of the growing Appalachia-Acela divide. Come November 8th, it doesn’t matter how many former Democrats in Southwest PA vote for Trump if more Republican women in SEPA chose Clinton.

In fact, that’s exactly what the new NBC/WSJ/Marist poll found. Out of seven states that they surveyed (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia) PA stood out in two categories. Clinton’s strength with women and Trump’s weakness among Republicans.

If Trump can’t turn around his fortunes in Philadelphia’s collar counties, he’ll have to find another road to the White House.