No candidate in Trump's position since the advent of TV, modern polling has won the popular vote

Can Donald Trump pull off what has so far been impossible in the modern era? He'll have to if he wants to be president. Looking at the last 16 consecutive elections, at this point in the campaign a candidate in Trump's position has never gone on to win the popular vote, Politico reports.

"When you come out of the conventions, the leader in the last 16 elections has not lost the popular vote," said Christopher Wlezien, a University of Texas professor who co-authored The Timeline of Presidential Elections: How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter. Wlezien explained that "not everybody's locked in" at this point in the election season but "there's a lot" who already have their minds made up.

This news will be particularly concerning to Republicans, as early and no-excuse absentee votes are much more widespread now, and start as early as next month. Yet Trump has blasted current polls as being biased media propaganda, and others have argued that Trump voters might not tell pollsters they are backing Trump when they receive phone calls. Yet Trump didn't out-perform in primary polls, and does not do better in anonymous online polls, giving little evidence to such claims.

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Since the proliferation of television and modern polling, there has never been a candidate in Trump's position who has come back from behind at this point. Trump may have a chance to make up lost ground in the three presidential debates, the first of which is Sept. 26, but experts like Wlezien say even that might be too little too late.