Lookit that, the convention bounce finally faded, yet Clinton maintains solid lead

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Daily Kos Staff

Thursday September 15, 2016 · 5:08 PM PDT

2016/09/15 · 17:08

NORTH LAS VEGAS, NV - SEPTEMBER 14: Lynnette Hull of Nevada has her cell phone on her lap with a case featuring an image of Hillary Clinton on it as Hull attends a campaign event with former U.S. President Bill Clinton speaking for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at a College of Southern Nevada campus on September 14, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Hillary Clinton is expected to be back on the campaign trail tomorrow after taking time off to recover from pneumonia. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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It was fun while it lasted, but not even Hillary Clinton could defy gravity. Still, with the race settling into a new pre-debates normal, there’s little to sweat at the presidential level. All data comes from HuffPo’s Pollster polling aggregator.

2016 BATTLEGROUND PRESIDENTIAL MATCHUPS
	9/15	8/30	8/17	7/28	7/19	6/30	6/10	5/12
US	C+3.6	C+6.6	C+8.6	C+1.3	C+2.5	C+7	C+4.6	C+3.6
AZ (11)	T+2	T+2	TIED	TIED	TIED	C+1	C+1	C+3
CO (9)	C+6	C+8	C+7	C+5	C+5	N/A	N/A	N/A
FL (29)	C+3	C+3	C+4	C+3	C+2	C+6	C+2	C+4
GA (16)	T+1	T+2	T+1	T+3	T+4	T+3	T+4	T+5
IA (6)	TIED	C+2	C+2	C+3	C+3	C+4	C+4	C+4
MI (16)	C+7	C+8	C+8	C+6	C+6	C+8	C+8	C+11
MO (10)	T+5	T+4	T+5	T+7	T+6	T+3	T+5	T+7
NC (15)	C+2	C+3	C+4	C+4	C+4	TIED	T+1	C+3
NV (6)	TIED	TIED	T+1	C+2	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
NH (4)	C+5	C+7	C+6	C+5	C+4	C+6	C+7	C+10
OH (18)	C+1	C+2	C+2	TIED	C+2	C+3	C+1	C+3
PA (20)	C+7	C+7	C+7	C+3	C+3	C+4	C+4	C+7
VA (13)	C+8	C+9	C+8	C+5	C+5	C+3	C+4	C+13
WI (10)	C+6	C+9	C+9	C+8	C+9	C+10	C+12	C+12

That adds up to 335 Clinton, 191 Donald Trump, and 12 are tied. A candidate needs to reach 270 to win. And traditional Red states Georgia and Arizona remain in contention. Missouri, too, barely.

Trump is running into the same problem Mitt Romney had in 2012, which is the same problem every Republican candidate will have until they stop making so many demographic enemies—his current levels of support are so low, getting to 50 becomes a monumentally difficult task.

Nationally, Trump is at 43. Add Libertarian Gary Johnson, and Trump falls to 39 percent.

Trump doesn’t even break 40 percent in Colorado (38 percent), Michigan (36 percent), New Hampshire (37 percent), Pennsylvania (38 percent), Virginia (38 percent), and Wisconsin (38 percent). Actually, Romney was at least in the low 40s in those states, so Trump is further behind than the last Republican loser.

Or put another way, Trump can barely muster a third of the electorate in many key battleground states.

In fact, the only battleground states he breaks 45 percent are Arizona (48 percent) and … that’s it. Arizona. Still, Republicans can be heartened that he’s above that mark in Kansas (48 percent), South Carolina (46 percent), and Texas (48 percent). Not Utah, though. He’s at 36 percent in Utah. (Clinton is at 27 percent.) But he won’t lose too many traditionally Republican Red states.

I’m still not worried about Nevada. Pollsters can’t capture the state’s Latino population, and it always comes back Bluer than the polling. Remember, Harry Reid was supposed to lose six years ago. Iowa, on the other hand, looks to be the one Obama state in real threat of switching sides.

I mean, does Iowa really want to be the one recent Blue state to have “Trump state” attached to its name for the foreseeable future? It seems like states would be mortified to be labeled as such! And sure, a bunch will, because partisanship is what it is these days, and Republicans could run a blobfish and still win their solid base states (some would argue that’s what they’re doing this year!).

But will Iowa really want to join that crowd while states like Arizona, Georgia, and even Missouri threaten to come out of the cold? Does Iowa really want Trump to be the guy that flips them to the Dark Side? We’ll know for sure in 54 days.

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