By John Dempsey, WLS-AM News

(CHICAGO)  Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele says despite Donald Trump’s recent slide in the polls, he still thinks the Republican can win the Presidential election on November 8th.

A new NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll this week shows Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by 11 points, 46 percent to 35 percent. That poll and others have consistently shown that Trump’s base is white voters who did not go to college, and Steele told

“The Big John and Ray Show” on WLS that if Trump can expand his coalition beyond that base, he can win.   “If he gets the numbers to move in his direction leading up to election day, if the momentum is with him in closing that number, he’s gonna carry that energy in terms of turnout that he is gonna need at the ballot box across the country and that then makes this a really good race.”

However Steele says Trump so far has not shown he can expand upon his base.   “It really is about expansion and that expansion starts with the candidate himself.   His ability to push himself to a point they haven’t gone before.   Donald Trump is good at shaking it up but he’s not sold the job or completed the task in the effort.  So he winds up getting the numbers to move in a certain direction,  then they stop.”

Steele also told WLS the recently leaked “Access Hollywood” tape that showed Trump describing women in degrading terms, will be harder for Trump to overcome than it would have been for a candidate that did not already have Trump’s baggage.

“That’s gonna be tough because he’s already laid down the predicate” said Steele, “there have been prior examples that he, at his campaign rallies or in interviews, has said and done things that have inflamed the passions of the people in a negative way. So when this tape hits, that then furthers that narrative.”

Steele maintains that Trump needs to stop tweeting angry messages at his critics and focus instead on Hillary Clinton.

@ 2016 WLS-AM News