New State Polls (8/1/16)
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State
|
Poll
|
Date
|
Margin of Error
|
Sample
|
Clinton
|
Trump
|
Undecided
|
Poll Margin
|
FHQ Margin
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nevada
|
7/29-7/31
|
+/- 4.0%
|
750 likely voters
|
41
|
40
|
5
|
+1
|
+0.52
| |
Pennsylvania
|
7/29-7/31
|
+/- 2.5%
|
1505 likely voters
|
45
|
42
|
8
|
+3
|
+4.71
| |
Virginia
|
7/26-7/27
|
+/- 3.8%
|
655 likely voters
|
42
|
46
|
5
|
+4
|
+3.03
| |
Polling Quick Hits:
Nevada:
Since Rasmussen was in the field in Nevada a week ago -- during the weekend between the conventions -- there has been an in-house shift toward Clinton in the poll. A week later the Rasmussen poll has witnessed a slight move toward Clinton. Rather than being five points down, the former secretary of state has pulled into the lead, albeit by the narrowest of margins. The bulk of the polling out of the Silver state -- and it should be said that it has been limited in 2016 -- has favored Trump. But the jury is still out. Nevada is historically difficult to survey and the best of the Nevada pollsters have yet to weigh in on this one.
Pennsylvania:
Back east in another battleground, PPP finds pretty much what it found at the end of June; before the conventions and before the Comey/FBI story. That is to say with Clinton up by a small margin. Clinton's four point edge in June is down to three now. However, the earlier poll was only a head-to-head with Trump whereas the post-conventions survey includes Johnson and Stein. [The head-to-head in the latest poll finds the same four point advantage with both candidates having gained three points each.] As many have noted, the most probable paths to 270 for Trump include the Keystone state. The problem to this point is that the New York businessman has been on the wrong side of the vast majority of survey work there to this point. The fact remains that if Trump does not push through in Florida and Ohio first, then he is unlikely to get to Pennsylvania in the order (see Spectrum) for it to matter. Pennsylvania is still positioned on the edge of the Toss Up Clinton category within a fraction of moving into the Lean Clinton area.
Virginia:
Let's start with the obvious: Trump has not led a poll in Virginia in 2016. The latest poll of the commonwealth from RABA Research, then, is either a sign of things to come or an outlier. FHQ would lean toward the latter. Sure, this one is not consistent with other polling in the Old Dominion, but it is also markedly different from the national poll the firm released over the post-Democratic convention weekend. There is something that of a mismatch when a battleground state like Virginia is Trump +4 and nationally the picture is Clinton +15. Now, those polls were in the field at slightly different times -- the Virginia poll during the Democratic convention and the national poll after it -- but that is a wide gap between the two that would, in addition to the other polling -- point toward both being outliers.
What the polls does do in Virginia is reduce the Clinton lead in the FHQ averages and remove the state from the Watch List below. Despite both of those facts, Virginia does not change its position on the Spectrum below. It still occupies half of the current tipping point states position.
The Electoral College Spectrum1
| ||||
HI-42
(7)
|
NJ-14
(175)
|
VA-133
(269 | 282)
|
UT-6
(158)
|
LA-8
(55)
|
MD-10
(17)
|
DE-3
(178)
|
IA-63
(275 | 269)
|
AK-3
(152)
|
SD-3
(47)
|
RI-4
(21)
|
WI-10
(188)
|
NH-4
(279 | 263) |
MO-10
(149)
|
ND-3
(44)
|
MA-11
(32)
|
NM-5
(193)
|
FL-29
(308 | 259) |
IN-11
(139)
|
ID-4
(41)
|
VT-3
(35)
|
OR-7
(200)
|
NC-15
(323 | 230)
|
TX-38
(128)
|
NE-5
(37)
|
CA-55
(90)
|
CT-7
(207)
|
OH-18
(341 | 215)
|
KS-6
(90)
|
AL-9
(32)
|
NY-29
(119)
|
ME-4
(211)
|
AZ-11
(197)
|
TN-11
(84)
|
KY-8
(23)
|
IL-20
(139)
|
CO-9
(220)
|
NV-6
(186)
|
SC-9
(73)
|
WV-5
(15)
|
MN-10
(149)
|
MI-16
(236)
|
GA-16
(180)
|
AR-6
(64)
|
OK-7
(10)
|
WA-12
(161)
|
PA-20
(256)
|
MS-6
(164)
|
MT-3
(58)
|
WY-3
(3)
|
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum.
2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Virginia (all Clinton's toss up states plus Virginia), he would have 282 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Trumps's is on the right in bold italics. To keep the figure to 50 cells, Washington, DC and its three electoral votes are included in the beginning total on the Democratic side of the spectrum. The District has historically been the most Democratic state in the Electoral College. 3 Iowa and Virginia are collectively the states where Clinton crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line. If those two states are separated with Clinton winning Virginia and Trump, Iowa, then there would be a tie in the Electoral College. | ||||
NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Clinton and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.
The Watch List1
| |||
State
|
Switch
| ||
|---|---|---|---|
Alaska
|
from Lean Trump
|
to Toss Up Trump
| |
Arizona
|
from Toss Up Trump
|
to Toss Up Clinton
| |
Arkansas
|
from Strong Trump
|
to Lean Trump
| |
Missouri
|
from Lean Trump
|
to Toss Up Trump
| |
Nevada
|
from Toss Up Trump
|
to Toss Up Clinton
| |
New Jersey
|
from Strong Clinton
|
to Lean Clinton
| |
Pennsylvania
|
from Toss Up Clinton
|
to Lean Clinton
| |
South Carolina
|
from Lean Trump
|
to Strong Trump
| |
Tennessee
|
from Lean Trump
|
to Strong Trump
| |
Utah
|
from Toss Up Trump
|
to Lean Trump
| |
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.
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Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (7/29/16)
The Electoral College Map (7/28/16)
The Electoral College Map (7/27/16)
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