The August 15 update* to the Consensus Pundit Electoral Map gives Hillary Clinton 279 electoral votes to 191 for Donald Trump; 68 electoral votes in four states are seen as true toss-ups.
The main changes from the prior map were to move Virginia and New Hampshire from toss-up to leaning Clinton. This was enough to push Clinton across the 270 electoral vote threshold for the first time. Several red states also became more competitive, with Kansas and South Carolina moving from safe to likely Trump, Missouri from likely to leaning Trump.
Click the map above to use it as a starting point for your own 2016 forecast. You can also review the individual forecasts (links above the map) that make up the Consensus Map.
* This article was first published based on updates as of early Monday, August 15. Subsequent updates that morning led to additional modifications of the map. The article and image were updated to take these changes into account.
Hillary Clinton leads by 14 in Colorado, 13 in Virginia, 9 in North Carolina and 5 in Florida, according to a new series of battleground polls from NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist.
With today's result, Virginia moves to Lean Clinton in the electoral map based on polls, putting the Democratic nominee across 270 electoral votes for the first time.
Click/tap the map to use it as a starting point for your 2016 election forecast.
While the poll numbers have been very good for Clinton the past couple weeks, keep in mind that polling is only a snapshot in time. The election is still more than 12 weeks away and this map will likely change considerably as the election nears and more polling is available. Whether future polls reverse course and show a closer race, or move in a direction where we're left with little suspense as to who will win on Election Day remains to be seen.
While other traditionally red states have shown signs of being competitive this November, the Lone Star State still looks safe for Donald Trump. The Republican nominee leads Hillary Clinton by 11 points in Texas, a new poll from Dixie Strategies finds.
This is the first Texas poll since the conventions, with the 11 point lead slightly wider than the 7-8 point lead found in a couple of late June Texas polls.
Texas has voted Republican since 1980. Its 38 electoral votes (up from 26 in that 1980 election) are the 2nd most in the country, only trailing California.
Bookmark our presidential election polls page to track the polls and their impact on the electoral map. On that page, you can see the 270toWin Polling Average for each state. You can sort those state averages various ways, including by level of competitiveness. The page also includes a link to the electoral map based on polls and a running list of the most recent presidential and Senate polls.
The first 2016 survey of South Carolina shows a tight race in a state not won by a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Public Policy finds Donald Trump leading by 2 points 41%-39%, with 5% supporting Gary Johnson.
The surprisingly narrow margin seems to be office-specific, as the same poll found incumbent Republican Senator Tim Scott with a 17 point lead over his Democratic challenger.
Hillary Clinton continues to get good news in the polls. Today it is from Wisconsin. The mid-August release of the well-respected Marquette Law poll gives her a 15 point lead over Donald Trump, a gain of 11 points from mid-July. Including 3rd parties, the lead remains well into double digits.
The latest version of the Electoral Map based on polling gives Hillary Clinton a 249-164 lead over Donald Trump. 125 electoral votes, from nine states and Maine's 2nd District are currently seen as toss-ups. For purposes of the polling map, a toss-up state is where the average difference between Clinton and Trump is five points are less. Leaning states are 5-10 points, with the darkest blue or red reserved for states where the 2016 presidential polls show a spread of greater than ten points.
The map shows that the battlegrounds of recent elections remain competitive, with Georgia and Arizona also looking to be in play. It is also worth noting that if the above map plays out, Florida becomes a must win for the Trump campaign, as a loss there puts Clinton over 270 electoral votes.
State-level polling should begin to pick up in earnest in the weeks ahead, so the map will undoubtedly shift as that happens, and as the campaigns decide the level of resources to commit in each state.
Note that we've slightly modified the methodology with this update. For states with no current polling (nothing after April), we are basing the categorization on a combination of what polling is available and the 2012 actual margin of victory. If no polling at all, then it is exclusively based on 2012. This moved a few states that were not particularly competitive in 2012, but that were shown as toss-up based on a single, outdated poll, into the leaning category. These include Alaska, Minnesota, Mississippi and South Carolina.
Dan Jones & Associates is out with their latest survey of Utah voters, finding little change in the standing of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump since their last poll in June. Trump leads Clinton by 12 points, 37% to 25%. Perhaps the most noticeable finding is the spike in support for Libertarian Gary Johnson, who gained 6 points since the June poll. At 16%, this is the highest number we've seen for Johnson in any poll to date. The former New Mexico governor is now closer to Clinton in 2nd than she is to Trump.
Interestingly, in 1992, Bill Clinton finished 3rd in the state, behind George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot. The independent Perot received over 27% of Utah's vote that year, slightly less than he received in Alaska and Maine.
Utah has not voted for a Democratic nominee since 1964.
It is worth noting that the field dates for this poll were July 18 through August 4. That is an extended period, during which both conventions were held.
Three months out from the November 8 presidential election, the Associated Press reports that "Hillary Clinton doesn't appear all that interested in making scenic stops on her state-to-state quest to become president. The Democratic nominee is instead programming her GPS to take her on the quickest route to collect the 270 Electoral College votes she needs to win the White House.
With three months until Election Day, Clinton's campaign is focused on capturing the battleground states that have decided the most recent presidential elections, not so much on expanding the map.
Clinton's team doesn't rule out an effort at Arizona, a state with a booming population of Latino voters that polls find are loath to support Trump. And Georgia, a bastion of the Deep South, echoes recent population trends in other Southeastern states where Clinton is competing aggressively.
But neither is among the 11 battleground states that Clinton's television advertising plans and her travel schedule point to as her focus. Those states are the perennial top-tier targets Florida and Ohio, plus Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. President Barack Obama carried them all in 2008, and missed out on only North Carolina during his 2012 re-election campaign."
Here's how the strategy looks on the electoral map. Click or tap it to create and share your own election forecast:
The Road to 270
As you create your forecast, keep an eye on The Road to 270 feature below the interactive map. There you can view all the combinations to reach 270 electoral votes for either Clinton or Trump, as well as any remaining tie possibilities. This automatically updates with each change you make to the map.
For example, with the map above, Clinton and Trump both have over 150 paths to 270, with numerous tie combinations remaining:
Click or tap on the number of combinations to view them individually, sorted from most to least likely based on the polls. You can also use the filters to see how many of the options involve each state, or a combination of states.
This feature becomes especially useful as the number of undecided states on your map declines. You'll begin to see states that are 'must win', as well as states that no longer matter in the path to 270.
A new Georgia poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution gives Hillary Clinton a four point lead in a head-head match-up with Donald Trump. When 3rd party candidates are tested, the lead is three, with Libertarian Gary Johnson breaking into double digits at 11%.
Georgia has not voted for the Democratic nominee since 1992, when Bill Clinton won the state on the way to winning his first term over incumbent George H.W. Bush. Clinton won the state by just 0.6%, the closest state race that year. Interestingly, it was also the last time a 3rd party candidate received a double digit share of the popular vote. Ross Perot won 13.3% of the vote that year in Georgia, 19% nationwide.
Hillary Clinton has opened up an average lead of almost 8% in national polling. She's led each such poll since the Democratic convention, leveraging a bounce from that event with Donald Trump's bad week to build a fairly sizeable lead.
Several battleground state polls have been released this week, and they are largely showing the same. A Suffolk poll out today gives Clinton a 6 point lead in Florida, while Franklin & Marshall finds her with an 11 point lead in Pennsylvania. In New Hampshire, Clinton leads by 17 and she's even slightly ahead in traditionally deep-red Arizona.
The Florida finding was particularly interesting, as the same pollster found Senator Marco Rubio with a double-digit lead over either of his likely challengers. (The Florida Senate primary is August 30).
There was some good news for Trump. He led by four in North Carolina and has maintained double-digit leads in deep red Kentucky and Tennessee.
The polling averages help us create the Electoral Map Based on Polls. Almost every state* has now been polled in 2016. Here's how the map currently looks:
Click or tap the image above to see the interactive version of the polling map which you can use to create and share your own 2016 presidential election forecast.
* Fewer than 10 states (+DC) have not been polled in 2016; these are all safe red or blue states and are reflected as such on the map. See the bottom of the polling average page for the specific states.
