States with new poll data since the last update: Georgia, Michigan
The string of bad news for Trump continues. This time out of Georgia:
Georgia has looked like a swing state ever since there were enough Clinton vs Trump polls to draw any real conclusions. It has consistently looked close. There was even a brief time in May where Clinton led in Georgia.*
With the latest results in Georgia, Clinton once again leads… but the polls in the average range from Clinton +4.0% to Trump +4.0%. The average itself is very close. Clinton only leads by 0.3%. The only real conclusion here right now is that Georgia could go either way. Which is remarkable, since this is Georgia. Georgia hasn’t gone blue since Bill Clinton won there in 1992.
Clinton’s very narrow lead here may well disappear with the very next poll, but for the moment, she is slightly ahead, so Georgia goes into her column.
If each candidate wins each of the states they are ahead in, Clinton now wins 357 to 181, a 176 electoral vote margin. This doesn’t yet match her high in May of a 188 electoral vote win in the expected case, but it is getting close.
With talk of a massive Trump loss once again dominating the chatter about the election, keep in mind that a 176 electoral vote margin still places Trump in the zone where he is doing worse than Romney (126 EV loss) but better than McCain (192 EV loss). Trump is losing, but it is the same sort of loss as the last couple of Republican candidates, not something of historic proportions. At least not at the moment.
Of course, there are 94.2 days until the polls close. That is plenty of time for things to change. A lot. It could get worse for Trump… or it could get better. It may well be that the latest drops are part of a Clinton convention bounce and not permanent damage for Trump. We’ll know better in a few weeks.
* This was not noted at the time because the poll that pushed Clinton over the edge wasn’t found and added until after the state had popped back to Trump.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added. If you find the information in these posts interesting or useful, please consider visiting the tip jar.