Donald Trump is performing far worse in many Republican strongholds than Mitt Romney did in 2012

Donald Trump is performing far worse in GOP strongholds than 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, a new report from data journalism outlet FiveThirtyEight found.

In states more Republican-leaning than North Carolina was in 2012 (Georgia being the bluest state), and had at least one poll available since November, Trump performed nearly 10-points worse than Romney in a weighted average of 17 GOP-dominated states.

Some of the most stunning numbers came from Utah, where Trump performed nearly 45% worse against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton than Romney did when he faced President Barack Obama in 2012.

In Kansas, FiveThirtyEight had Clinton ahead of Trump by roughly 2.5%. Romney won that state over Obama by 21.6% in 2012.

Other states that included large swings: Oklahoma, Idaho, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, Alaska, Mississippi, South Carolina, Missouri, and Arizona. The only states among the 17 where Trump was trailing Romney by less than 5 points were Georgia, Indiana, and Louisiana. West Virginia and Montana were the two where Trump was currently outperforming Romney's 2012 results.

Although Trump was performing far worse than Romney, Kansas was the only state FiveThirtyEight's unadjusted polling average found that Clinton had flipped.

In swing states, Clinton was winning 12 of 13, with Nevada being the only state Trump had flipped in his favor. FiveThirtyEight had North Carolina flipping from red to blue in 2016.

Clinton's lead over Trump was thinner than Obama's over Romney in Colorado, New Hampshire, Iowa, and New Mexico, while it's larger in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan.

Where Trump actually fared slightly better than Romney was in Democratic strongholds, where he was performing roughly 2.5% better than the former Massachusetts governor did in 2012. However, he trailed Clinton by nearly 20 points in these states, whereas Clinton is within 7 points in the GOP strongholds.

 FiveThirtyEIght's most recent election forecast gave Clinton a near 80% chance of winning in November.