Election News

As we head into the final presidential debate, and with just under three weeks to go until the 2016 presidential election, here's the state of the race from the viewpoint of 14 forecasters. You can find all the associated maps, as well as a few others, on our 2016 Presidential Election Forecasts page.

Since our last update on October 13th, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's average total electoral votes are little changed. Clinton is at 300, Trump 187. Within Trump's average, however, we are beginning to see an erosion in states where the Republican nominee is favored vs. those that are leaning in his direction. For example, a couple forecasters have moved Texas from favored to leaning. 

Hillary Clinton is averaging an 8 point lead nationally over Donald Trump after the release of two new polls Sunday morning. An ABC News / Washington Post poll showed Clinton with a 4 point lead, while an NBC News / WSJ poll showed her with a 10 point advantage (11 when including third parties).

While these two polls offered significantly different results, and will likely be individually cited by partisans of the respective candidates, the average of the two is very close to the overall average of all recent national polls. This again highlights why it is better to look at the average of multiple polls vs. any single one.

SurveyUSA finds a fairly close race in Texas, with Donald Trump having a four point edge on Hillary Clinton. From the pollster: "No Republican has carried Texas by fewer than 13 points since Bob Dole defeated Bill Clinton by 5 points 20 years ago, when Texan Ross Perot siphoned 7% of the vote. Today, Trump leads by 33 points among white Texans, but Clinton leads by 64 points among African Americans and by 23 points among Latinos."

With just under four weeks to go until the 2016 presidential election, here's the state of the race from the viewpoint of 14 forecasters. You can find all the associated maps, as well as a few others, on our 2016 Presidential Election Forecasts page.

Since our last update on October 5th, Hillary Clinton's average total electoral votes climbed from 280 to 300, most of which derived from forecasters moving states out of toss-up. Donald Trump's average only fell slightly, from 193 to 189. 

Depending on how the presidential race shakes out over the next four weeks, the biggest battle on Election Day may be for control of the U.S. Senate. Republicans currently control with 54 seats, Democrats (including two independents) have 46. Since the Vice-President breaks any ties, Democrats will need to gain four seats if Clinton wins, five if Trump prevails.

Of the 34 seats up this year, 24 are currently held by Republicans. Looking at the Senate ratings from three pundits (Sabato, Cook, Rothenberg & Gonzales), 18 seats seem to be safe for the incumbent party. Of the remaining 16, five are rated safe by two of the three pundits, so are not likely to change hands. That leaves 11 competitive seats, only one of which - Nevada - is currently in Democratic hands.

A fascinating new poll out in Utah has Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump tied, with independent conservative Evan McMullin close behind, within the margin of error. Gary Johnson also makes a significant showing, with the non-major party candidates combining for a total well in excess of either Clinton or Trump. This sets the stage for a possible win by a third party in Utah this year, if Utahns can settle on either McMullin or Johnson. 

Our three-way electoral map allows you to consider the possibility that a 3rd party could win electoral votes in 2016. Specific names can be set by clicking to the left of the electoral counter. We've given Utah to McMullin in the example below.

Donald Trump rebounded in the portion of an NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll conducted entirely after Sunday's second presidential debate. However, he continues to trail Hillary Clinton by a fairly significant margin.

Trump trailed by 11 (four-way) to 14 (head-head) in the widely-publicized portion of the poll conducted after the release of the tape and before the debate. For those polled after the debate, Clinton's lead was 7. For the full poll, taken October 8th through 10th, Clinton's lead is 9 (four-way) to 10 (head-head) points.

The partial poll release has been removed from our database. Below, we compare the results to the last full NBC/WSJ poll from September 21.

Here's a list of the polls since Friday:

The two Pennsylvania polls are most notable. Hillary Clinton has now opened up a nine point average lead over Donald Trump in this critical battleground.  That state has moved to lean Clinton in the electoral map based on polls. That map currently has Clinton with 260 electoral votes, Trump 161.

A very busy week for poll releases has been mostly favorable for Hillary Clinton, with the Democratic nominee taking a larger lead in battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Including the lastest figures, Clinton now is ahead by more than five points in states representing 240 electoral votes.

About a dozen states have had one or more polls released since the beginning of October. It's a good mix of battleground states, along with some states that haven't been polled very much. Generally speaking, for a given state, Clinton outperformed the polling average during this period, although the overall electoral map based on polls has not changed much.  

The full list of recent presidential polls can be found here, with the full set of polling averages also available.