Politico: Trump Has Broken Clinton's Hold On Electoral College

Do you guys remember this?

Well, since then, we’ve had more news about Hillary Clinton’s emails, the latest developments on the Clinton Foundation led to her dropping seven points in three days, and then she got a bit weak in the knees at the 9/11 Memorial because she decided to hide her pneumonia diagnosis from the public. That’s bad. It’s also bad to see a woman who could potentially be the next president of the United States being dragged by her security detail and shoved into a van due to her ill health.

In August, there was talk of Clinton having a lock on the Electoral College. Now, this appears to have been broken, according to Politico. Donald Trump has closed in on the former secretary of state, with the political winds in virtually every swing state blowing in Trump’s favor. That’s had a ripple effect. The GOP’s fight to retain the Senate has become considerably better, with Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) holding a massive double-fight lead over Ted Strickland. Ohio was thought to be the GOP’s toughest re-election fight this year. Another candidate that’s back from the dead zone is Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), who seems to be pulling away from Gov. Maggie Hassan—a solid Democratic challenger.

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Yet, back to Trump breaking down Clinton’s electoral lock, it seems that it’s not necessarily more voters going to Trump, though he has proven to be more able to consolidate his base of support, whereas Clinton is suffering from scores of young Democrats flocking to the Green Party and the libertarians. Still, for Trump, he is facing some deficits with groups that typically vote Republican. It’s an issue and one he should focus his attention on as we approach Election Day, though Clinton’s failure to get young people enthused about her could be an issue that’s more serious regarding turnout. Team Trump is ready for war (via Politico):

According to POLITICO’s Battleground States polling average, Trump is now ahead in Iowa and Ohio — and he’s tied with Clinton in vote-rich Florida.

A slightly more aggressive estimate could add Nevada, North Carolina and one electoral vote in Maine to Trump’s tally: The New York real-estate magnate is ahead in the most recent polls in Nevada and North Carolina, and in Maine’s Second Congressional District.

That, plus all the other states Mitt Romney won four years ago, would get Trump to 266 electoral votes — just four shy of the 270 needed to win. Clinton’s once-comfortable cushion has been deflated to such an extent that if Trump wins those states and the electoral vote in Maine, he only needs one more state to win — with Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia the most likely targets. And there’s recent polling evidence suggesting he is in striking distance in some of those states.

[…]

Trump is also lagging among more friendly GOP leaning groups: He wins just 46 percent of white women, including just 40 percent of white women with a college degree. (Mitt Romney won about 56 percent of white female voters in 2012, according to exit polls.)

The Quinnipiac poll was similar: Trump wins just 19 percent of the nonwhite vote, 46 percent of white women and 44 percent of white voters who graduated from college.

[…]

But Clinton has her challenges, too. In the Fox News poll, she only leads Trump by a 5-point margin among voters under age 35, 38 percent to 33 percent. (She actually leads Trump by 4 points among all voters 55 and older.)

While other polls show her further ahead of Trump among younger voters, perhaps most troubling is the number of younger voters who say they intend to support one of the two major third-party candidates. In the Fox News poll, it’s a combined 24 percent of voters younger than 35 who choose Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

This is Fox News’ latest Electoral Map released today. It looks like we're heading towards a map that looks similar to the 2004 election. I know Fox News has New Mexico being a solid Democratic state, though the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll had Trump leading there by five points over Clinton. A lot can change in a month.

Here's Reuters: