Hillary Clinton’s current national polling lead is seven eight points. President Barack Obama won the 2012 election by four points, and that wasn’t particularly close. But in reality, Clinton is winning by an even bigger margin where it counts—in the states.
Remember, the winner needs to reach 270 electoral votes. So let’s look at the Pollster.com polling aggregate for the battleground states:
|
Pollster.com margin |
Electoral Votes |
SAfe D states |
n/a |
201 |
Wisconsin (10) |
Clinton +9 |
211
|
Michigan (16) |
Clinton +8 |
227 |
Colorado (9) |
Clinton +7 |
236 |
Pennsylvania (20) |
Clinton +7 |
256 |
Virginia (13) |
Clinton +7 |
269 |
New Hampshire (4) |
Clinton +6 |
273 |
North Carolina (15) |
Clinton +4 |
288 |
Florida (29) |
Clinton +3 |
317 |
Iowa (6) |
Clinton +3 |
323 |
Ohio (18) |
Clinton +2 |
341 |
Arizona (11) |
Trump +1 |
(352) |
Georgia (16) |
Trump +1 |
(368) |
Nevada (6) |
Trump +1 |
(374) |
South Carolina (9) |
Trump +5 |
(383) |
Missouri (10) |
Trump +6 |
(393) |
There are several ways to look at this.
- New Hampshire is the state that currently gives Clinton the victory, and she’s winning it by a comfy six points.
- If Clinton were to win every state that Donald Trump currently leads in by that same 6-point margin, the electoral score would end up 393-145. And if you think that winning South Carolina or Missouri seems kinda crazy, why would Trump winning New Hampshire or Virginia seem more plausible? Personally, neither seem plausible to me. The remaining battlegrounds are all in that 4-point-margin area. But then again, isn’t Trump doing everything possible to gift Clinton more battlegrounds? Georgia not good enough? Here, let me throw in South Carolina as a sweetener! Still not satisfied, how about Utah? Here, have a Texas!
- Clinton has built quite an electoral cushion. Nevada will go blue, I guarantee it. Polls always underrepresent Democrats (and in particular, Latinos, in the state). But beyond that, there are a lot of supposed battleground states safely in the blue column. And yet where is Trump? He certainly isn’t advertising (not that it would matter). Instead, he’s spending valuable campaign time in places like Connecticut and Maine (where at best he’d get zero and one electoral votes, respectively), and he’s spending his days twitterstorming against the media, fellow Republicans, and Gold Star families. Meanwhile, don’t look for campaign field offices in battleground states. They don’t exist.
- It’s not just that Trump is losing by big margins in those battleground states—he can’t even break 40 percent in most of them. His numbers, per the aggregate: Colorado, 37, Florida 43, Iowa 37, Michigan 34, New Hampshire 36, North Carolina 41, Ohio 42, Virginia 38, and Wisconsin 36. In other words, he’s barely getting the support of one-third of voters, with little effort to try and expand beyond the Trumpian dead-ender base.
- The trendlines in most of those states remain in our favor. There isn’t a state in which Trump is making up ground. Quite the opposite, in fact.
- Funny thing is, the aggregate includes shitty or unknown pollsters that mitigate Trump’s number. For example, in Virginia, the latest polls are WaPo: Clinton +8, Marist: Clinton +13, CBS/YouGov: Clinton +13, and … RABA Research, Trump +4. What the fuck is “RABA Research”? Who knows! But somehow, all that polling comes out to Clinton +7. That’s fine, I’m not complaining! It might even be helpful to have some of that shitty polling to temper the more established and credible pollsters. And for all we know, those double-digit leads are actually bunk! That’s why the aggregate matters, and why I trust it beyond any single poll. But still … some of the polling out there is surprisingly gaudy for Clinton, so things may be even better for her than the aggregate would suggest.