Despite winning over 13 million votes as a Democrat during the recent nomination battle with Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders will return to the Senate as an independent. 

The Vermont Senator, speaking at a breakfast on Tuesday, said that "I was elected as an independent; I'll stay two more years as an independent". Sanders is in his 2nd term; he joined the Senate after winning the 2006 election.

Angus King of Maine is the other independent serving in the Senate. Like Sanders, he caucuses with the Democrats. The next election for both of these seats is in 2018.

Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton 48%-45% in a CNN/ORC poll out Monday morning. The new poll is a ten-point swing from a pre-convention poll that had Clinton up by seven points.

The lead is five points in a four-way match-up that includes Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. 

According to CNN: "There hasn't been a significant post-convention bounce in CNN's polling since 2000. That year Al Gore and George W. Bush both boosted their numbers by an identical 8 points post-convention before ultimately battling all the way to the Supreme Court.

Hillary Clinton has chosen Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate for the 2016 presidential election, according to the New York Times. 

I'm thrilled to announce my running mate, @TimKaine, a man who's devoted his life to fighting for others. -H pic.twitter.com/lTVyfztE5Z

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 23, 2016

Hillary Clinton's search for a running mate is complete, CNN is reporting. The choice is expected to be revealed in a message to supporters late Friday, with that person likely to join her at a campaign rally on Saturday.

Here are some of the names that have been most frequently cited in recent days:

Tim Kaine: First term Senator from Virginia as well as a former governor of this pivotal battleground state. Kaine's seat isn't up for election until 2018, giving Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe the opportunity to appoint a successor until a special election in November, 2017. The New York Times reports that while Kaine is the most likely choice, "liberals.. are concerned about Mr. Kaine's positions on global trade deals and Wall Street regulation." He has also been an outspoken advocate of free trade.

Tom Vilsack: The former Iowa governor is the current Secretary of Agriculture. The state is another expected battleground this November. In addition, Vilsack could be a very effective campaigner in rural areas of the rust belt, areas that are key to Donald Trump's strategy for winning the White House. Vilsack is very close to the Clintons.

Cory Booker: Second term Senator from New Jersey, Booker could help with minority turnout. He's also probably the most dynamic personality in the Clinton short list. A couple of factors favoring Tim Kaine work against Booker. New Jersey is not a swing state; its 14 electoral votes are pretty safely in the Clinton column. Perhaps more importantly, Republican governor Chris Christie would appoint Booker's replacement. Given the expected battle for control of the Senate this November, that one shift could keep Republicans in charge of that body.

Tom Perez: A career civil rights prosecutor and current Secretary of Labor, Perez is the most progressive prospect on this short list. A liberal pick might help to bring around skeptical Sanders supporters. Perez is quite popular with labor unions. As a Latino, he could further solidify Clinton's advantage in that rapidly growing demographic. 

Several other names seem to have faded from contention. These include Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Sherrod Brown (OH), Representative Xavier Becerra (CA-34) and Housing Secretary Julian Castro.   

The 270toWin polling pages have been updated to include and break out the performance of Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein. Given the high unfavorables of the major party nominees, it could very well be that one or both of these 3rd party nominees influences the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

On our 2016 presidential election polls home page, we show the most recent poll from each state. Use the check box to view polls that include Johnson and/or Stein. The polls can be ordered by date or alphabetically by state. Another option is competitiveness (Clinton vs. Trump). Finally, you can choose a candidate to order the results from high to low for that person. For example, Johnson's best numbers have been seen in three Western states and New Hampshire:

With state-level polling expected to significantly pick up in the weeks ahead, we will be transitioning this page in the near future to reflect the polling average for each state, as opposed to the most recent poll.

Each state's most recent poll includes a link to all the polls for that state. There is also a separate link on the page to the national polls. These pages are divided into two sections. The top half just looks at Clinton vs. Trump, while the bottom section includes poll tests that include one or more 3rd parties*. 

 * Some polls are including separate queries for Clinton/Trump and Clinton/Trump/Named 3rd Party. Where both are available, each result is used in the appropriate table. Where the only question is Clinton/Trump/Named 3rd Party, that result is used in both tables. Finally, if the only question is Clinton/Trump, there is no entry for that poll in the 3rd party table.

Citing the cost of security, Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio has withdrawn as host of this year's first general election presidential debate. 

The debate will instead be held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. The date remains September 26th. Hofstra hosted the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012.

Three presidential debates are scheduled this fall. The second one is October 9th in St. Louis, the final one October 19th in Las Vegas. A single vice presidential debate will be held October 4th in Farmville, Virginia.

Three national polls out on the eve of the Republican convention find Hillary Clinton with a lead of four to seven points over Donald Trump. 

Looking at these current results vs. late June polls from the same pollsters finds the largest shift in the ABC/Washington Post poll, which showed Clinton with a 12 point lead last month. There was no change in the NBC poll's five point spread, while CNN showed Clinton gaining two points on Trump.

Each pollster also did a heat that included Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein. Both continue to attract significiant interest for 3rd party candidates, with Gary Johnson getting as much as 13% support. The addition of these two did not significantly affect the overall spread between Clinton and Trump, indicating they are impacting the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees roughly equally.

For those interested, we will be adding results for Johnson and Stein to our polling pages within the next few days.

Here's the latest electoral map based on state-level polling. States not yet polled are in gray. Toss-up states (tan) are those where the average difference between Clinton & Trump is five points or less. The lighter blue/red reflect spreads of five to ten points, and the darkest blue/red greater than ten points.

There have been quite a few state polls this week, which have led to some shifts in the map. Most notably, Colorado and Virginia have moved from toss-up to leaning Clinton. On the other hand, national polls have been showing a tightening race. Since state polling isn't as frequent at this point in the campaign, this map may not fully capture the current state of the race.

This lack of frequency and/or recency can also yield some unlikely results. States like Kansas and Mississippi are not likely to stay where they are now as more data comes in.

The map below takes the polling map and applies the 2012 outcomes for unpolled states. Click it for an interactive version. 

The Indianapolis Star is reporting that governor Mike Pence is "dropping his re-election bid in Indiana to become Donald Trump's running mate. 

The New York Times is slightly more cautious with the news, saying "Trump's campaign has signaled strongly to Republicans in Washington that he will pick Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, as his running mate, though Republicans caution the party’s mercurial presidential candidate may still backtrack on his apparent choice." 

Whether Pence or someone else, a formal announcement of Trump's choice is expected at 11:00AM Friday morning.

I will be making the announcement of my Vice Presidential pick on Friday at 11am in Manhattan. Details to follow.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2016

A new poll from the New York Times and CBS News finds the presidential race tied nationally at 40%. The last time this poll was taken, Clinton had a six-point lead, 47-41%. 

According to the Times: "Clinton has emerged from the F.B.I. investigation into her email practices as secretary of state a wounded candidate with a large and growing majority of voters saying she cannot be trusted."

Overall, Clinton leads by 3.2% in the 270toWin Average of National Polls. 

Fully 20% of respondents, one out of every five registered voters, would not choose either Clinton or Trump. We looked back at some 2012 national polls conducted around the same time, and generally found this number to be less than 10%. For example, the same NYT/CBS poll in mid-July, 2012 also showed a tied race, but only 7% didn't prefer Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.

Many of those 20% may be looking for another option. As it turns out, the poll also tested a three-way race including Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson. Here the race was tied at 36%, with Johnson getting 12%. It is worth noting that if Johnson can reach an average of 15% in national polls, he could qualify for the first presidential debate, scheduled for September 26th in Dayton, Ohio.  The specific criteria are as follows:

"Under the 2016 criteria, in addition to being Constitutionally eligible, candidates must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College, and have a level of support of at least 15% of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recently publicly-reported results at the time of the determination. The polls to be relied upon will be selected based on the quality of the methodology employed, the reputation of the polling organizations and the frequency of the polling conducted. CPD will identify the selected polling organizations well in advance of the time the criteria are applied.

The CPD's determination with respect to participation in the CPD's first-scheduled debate will be made after Labor Day 2016, but sufficiently in advance of the first-scheduled debate to allow for orderly planning."