A Clinton rout in the 'battlefield states?'
According to a new Ballotpedia poll, Clinton leads Trump by 17 points in "toss-up" state Michigan, 14 points in ""toss up" state Pennsylvania, 14 points in "toss-up" state Florida, 13 points in "toss-up" state Virginia, 10 points in "toss-up" state North Carolina, nine points in "toss-up" state Ohio, and seven points in "toss-up" state Virginia.
Add those 111 electoral votes to the total of 210 RCP already puts in the Clinton column and she has 321.
270 are needed to elect.
According to the Ballotpedia poll, in the seven of the 11 so-called "battleground states" in which Clinton leads, only my own state of Iowa- which I cannot imagine Trump carrying- is within Trump's reach. Here, the poll says that he trails by only four points.
For some reason, Ballotpedia also polled races in the "battleground states" between Clinton and both Ohio Gov. John Kasich and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Kasich beat Clinton in five of the seven "battleground states," no surprise since Kasich has been Clinton's strongest opponent in the polls all year. Ryan beats her in three of the seven .
Interestingly, the Kasich campaign organization (yes, he still has one) sent out an email today citing those results. Kasich is either planning a third party bid (which I doubt, and in any case he'd better hurry if he is) or preparing- as I suspect- for an almost certainly futile attempt to snatch the nomination from Donald Trump at Cleveland.
So why the difference between the Ballotpedia poll and the other polls taken into account by RCP? For one thing, the Ballotpedia poll was conducted over 12 days rather than the three to five that is standard. Also, the RCP average is exactly that: an average of polls with different-sized samples taken over differing periods and differing times. The Ballotpedia poll is pretty much uniform.
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