The Electoral College Map (10/14/16)

New State Polls (10/14/16)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Clinton	Trump	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
Indiana	Monmouth	10/11-10/13	+/- 4.9%	402 likely voters	41	45	5	+4	+10.12
New Hampshire	Public Policy Polling	10/7-10/9	+/- 4.0%	600 likely voters	48	37	15	+11	--
New Hampshire	UMass-Lowell	10/7-10/11	+/- 4.87%	517 likely voters	45	39	4	+6	--
New Hampshire	MassINC/WBUR	10/10-10/12	+/- 4.4%	501 likely voters	41	38	4	+3	+5.46
Oregon	Survey USA	10/10-10/12	+/- 3.9%	654 likely voters	48	38	5	+10	+9.90
Texas	Survey USA	10/10-10/12	+/- 4.0%	638 likely voters	43	47	5	+4	+8.12

Polling Quick Hits:
The work week ended with another handful of polls, most of which were in the field after the Trump tape and the second debate. The picture continued to be one of further Clinton advantage, but this time into some red states.

Indiana:
Like Alaska and Utah, Indiana has tightened up some over that week or so. What had been stronger Trump leads have contracted to a point that would place them along the Lean/Toss Up line depending on the poll. What makes them all safer through the FHQ lens is the combination of 1) like a lot of the states outside the toss ups on the Trump side of the partisan line, most red states have been universally underpolled and 2) a handful of online panels that offer only a binary choice rather than the multiple options that are on the ballot in most cases. In the FHQ averages that gives more weight to some of these head-to-head-only polls where Trump's margin is considerably larger. Still, even if one removes those polls, Trump's lead is over eight points in Indiana. The polls are closer across these states, but the electoral votes remain in Trump's column.


New Hampshire:
One could dig into the numbers in these three polls, but the simple fact remains that while they are a bit more volatile than some of the polling in New Hampshire has been (in the lead up to the first debate), together they tell the tale in the Granite state. Split the difference. The middle path would have Clinton at roughly 45 percent and Trump at 39 percent. However, FHQ would urge at least some caution on that conclusion. The direction is likely right -- Clinton is ahead -- but the extent may be overstated due to that PPP survey. It was in the field smack in the middle of the Trump tapes and the second debate. Additionally, it is a head-to-head as opposed to a multi-way poll. Those types of polls have tended to inflate Clinton's standing in the Lean Clinton states in particular.


Oregon:
It is perhaps notable relative to 2008 and 2012 that Clinton has less than 50 percent support in the Beaver state, but that means less in light of the fact that Oregon has since the conventions consistently been right around the Strong/Lean line in Clinton's group of states. The new Survey USA poll further solidifies that positioning.


Texas:
See Indiana. Texas has been a state that has favored Trump by seven to nine points all year. It stands to reason, then, that if there is a several points national shift toward Clinton that that phenomenon would stretch to Texas as well. Seven to nine points becomes 4-6 points in that scenario. Trump just happens to be on the low end of that range at the moment in this Survey USA poll. But even if Texas is at Trump +6 that means that the race is close in states that would push Clinton's electoral vote total to around 350. And that is a large cushion to have with 25 days to go.


--
With just a few new polls, there was not a lot of movement. Pennsylvania and New Hampshire swapped spots on the Spectrum as did Indiana and Mississippi. The former is more consequential in the chase for electoral votes than the latter, but decreasingly so. The map remained the same as a day ago but the Watch List added Indiana along the Strong/Lean Trump line.

NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2016 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
MD-102 (13)	WA-12 (162)	PA-20 (263)	SC-9 (154)	MT-3 (53)
HI-4 (17)	NJ-14 (176)	CO-94 (272 | 275)	AK-3 (145)	AR-6 (50)
VT-3 (20)	OR-7 (183)	FL-29 (301 | 266)	TX-38 (142)	ND-3 (44)
CA-55 (75)	NM-5 (188)	NC-15 (316 | 237)	IN-11 (104)	KY-8 (41)
MA-11 (86)	ME-23 (190)	OH-18 (334 | 222)	MS-6 (93)	NE-53 (33)
NY-29+13 (116)	MN-10 (200)	NV-6 (340 | 204)	UT-6 (87)	AL-9 (28)
IL-20 (136)	MI-16 (216)	IA-6 (198)	KS-6 (81)	OK-7 (19)
DE-3 (139)	WI-10 (226)	AZ-11 (192)	LA-8 (75)	ID-4 (12)
CT-7 (146)	VA-13 (239)	GA-16+13 (181)	TN-11 (67)	WV-5 (8)
RI-4 (150)	NH-4 (243)	MO-10 (164)	SD-3 (56)	WY-3 (3)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. 2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Colorado (all Clinton's toss up states plus Colorado), he would have 275 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Trumps's is on the right in bold italics. To keep the figure to 50 cells, Washington, DC and its three electoral votes are included in the beginning total on the Democratic side of the spectrum. The District has historically been the most Democratic state in the Electoral College. 3 Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral college votes to candidates in a more proportional manner. The statewide winner receives the two electoral votes apportioned to the state based on the two US Senate seats each state has. Additionally, the winner within a congressional district is awarded one electoral vote. Given current polling, all five Nebraska electoral votes would be allocated to Trump. In Maine, a split seems more likely. Trump leads in Maine's second congressional district while Clinton is ahead statewide and in the first district. She would receive three of the four Maine electoral votes and Trump the remaining electoral vote. Those congressional district votes are added approximately where they would fall in the Spectrum above. 4 Colorado is the state where Clinton crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line. Currently, Colorado is in the Toss Up Clinton category.

NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Clinton and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.

The Watch List1
State	Switch
Indiana	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Maine CD2	from Toss Up Trump	to Lean Trump
Mississippi	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Nevada	from Toss Up Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
New Hampshire	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
Ohio	from Toss Up Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
Oregon	from Lean Clinton	to Strong Clinton
Pennsylvania	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
Virginia	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (10/13/16)

The Electoral College Map (10/12/16)

The Electoral College Map (10/11/16)

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The Electoral College Map (10/13/16)

New State Polls (10/13/16)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Clinton	Trump	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
Florida	Florida Atlantic	10/5-10/9	+/- 4.9%	500 likely voters	49	43	7	+6	+2.18
Georgia	Landmark	10/11-10/12	+/- 2.7%	1400 likely voters	42	48	6	+6	+3.44
Missouri	Remington	10/9-10/11	+/- 2.1%	2171 likely voters	42	47	5	+5	+6.92
Nevada	Clarity Campaigns	10/10-10/11	+/- 3.1%	500 likely voters	43	43	8	+/-0	--
Nevada	Public Opinion Strategies	10/11-10/12	+/- 4.0%	600 likely voters	45	39	6	+6	+0.70
New Hampshire	Greenberg Quinlan Rosner	9/29-10/2	+/- 4.38%	500 likely voters	46	37	6	+9	+5.28
New Jersey	Rutgers-Eagleton	9/6-9/10	+/- 3.6%	735 registered voters	50	29	7	+21	+11.64
North Carolina	Suffolk	10/10-10/12	+/- 4.4%	500 likely voters	45	43	7	+2	--
North Carolina	Emerson	10/10-10/12	+/- 3.9%	600 likely voters	46	42	5	+4	--
North Carolina	Marist/NBC/Wall Street Journal	10/10-10/12	+/- 3.6%	743 likely voters	45	41	3	+4	+1.45
Ohio	Emerson	10/10-10/12	+/- 3.9%	600 likely voters	45	43	4	+2	--
Ohio	Marist/NBC/Wall Street Journal	10/10-10/12	+/- 3.6%	724 likely voters	41	42	3	+1	+0.98
Pennsylvania	Selzer/Bloomberg	10/7-10/11	+/- 3.5%	806 likely voters	48	39	3	+9	+5.42
Utah	Monmouth	10/10-10/12	+/- 4.9%	403 likely voters	28	34	6	+6	+11.03
Virginia	Emerson	10/10-10/12	+/- 3.9%	600 likely voters	46	43	4	+3	+5.95

Polling Quick Hits:
With just 26 days left until Election Day, fifteen polls from 11 states were released. Two-thirds of those were polls in the field after both the Trump Tape release and the second presidential debate. And again, like a day ago, the picture is somewhat mixed (particularly in light of what the prevailing expectations were concerning the effect of the tape release specifically). The bottom has neither dropped out for Trump nor has Clinton consistently pulled further ahead in state-level polls. What has been consistent is Clinton's lead. None of the polls added shifted any state from where it was previously.

Florida:
Florida Atlantic University was last in the field in the Sunshine state in late August during a period when both candidates were trading leads in the polls. Then, FAU had Trump ahead by a couple of points. But now, the candidates have traded leads again. Only this time the new poll finds Clinton +6 but in the context of a string of Clinton leads in Florida surveys since the first debate.


Georgia:
The Peach state is one of the states to watch if Trump's fortunes are flagging even a little. A further shift toward Clinton nationally would tend to mean that Georgia would be coming back more into play again, shifting toward the partisan line along with Toss Up Trump states like Arizona and Iowa. This Landmark survey -- the first one there from any firm since the first debate -- shows no evidence that that sort of shift is in the works. It is actually quite the opposite: Since the last Landmark poll in Georgia just after the conventions, Clinton held steady in the low 40s while Trump inched a couple more points closer to 50 percent. Clinton may gain a state or two between now and the election, but it seems like the partisan line will end up somewhere to the Clinton side of Georgia (meaning it is still a Trump state).


Missouri:
The next most Trump state in line after Georgia on the Electoral College Spectrum is Missouri. And for the second consecutive day, there are more data to suggest that the Show-Me state, too, is dug in in the Lean Trump category beyond Clinton's grasp. The race tightened up there following the conventions, but have since settled into more comfortable Trump lead.


Nevada:
One of the trends that separated Nevada from North Carolina and Ohio during the pre-debate Clinton swoon was that Trump had reeled off a series of survey leads in the Silver state. Things were not as consistent in the other two states. Ohio may still be a bit volatile, but now Clinton has had a run of her own in not only North Carolina but Nevada as well. She has not trailed in either since the first debate.


New Hampshire:
There has not been a lot of new data out the Granite state since the first debate. What little there has been broke from the consistent Lean Clinton pattern that had emerged after the convention, establishing a new range that included the same five to nine point Clinton leads but mixed in a handful of narrower results. The latest GQR survey there from the before the Trump tape/second debate fits in the former group. And that keeps New Hampshire right where it has been: in Lean Clinton territory.


New Jersey:
Another older poll -- this one in the Garden state -- does little to change the dynamic there. New Jersey has been camped out on the Strong/Lean line in Clinton's group of states for most of the last few months. The wide margin in the Rutgers poll pushes New Jersey even further into the Strong Clinton category and off the Watch List for the first time in a while.


North Carolina:
No break in the post-first debate streak for Clinton yet. Her lead is small in the Tar Heel state, but the three new polls are causing the average slide further away from the partisan line separating the two candidates' groups of states.


Ohio:
It remains a mixed bag in Ohio. The recent polling has tended to favor Clinton since debate season began, but it has stayed close and Clinton has not consistently led in that time. The two polls released today are in some way a microcosm of that with the end result being that the Buckeye state is just on Clinton's side of the partisan line.


Pennsylvania:
If Trump has to sweep Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania to win, that leaves quite a bit of ground to make up. Nine point deficits in Pennsylvania are not helping, but neither is being behind in the other three states as well.


Utah:
If the race is to 30 percent in Utah, then Trump is in pretty good shape. Good, not great. Monmouth, like Y2 Analytics yesterday, finds both major party candidates below 40 percent and four candidates in double digits. More importantly, both found Evan McMullin above 20 percent, adding a bit of uncertainty to the race in Utah that had not been there since earlier in the year.


Virginia:
FHQ will not make too much of a single Emerson poll in Virginia. Sure, it is tipped toward Clinton and perhaps a bit closer than most of the recent polling of the Old Dominion has been, but the poll does little to change the overall picture other than to pull Virginia back on to the Watch List. Still, Virginia is nearly six points away from the partisan line at the moment. That is not a gap that tends to get made up in the three plus weeks of a normal presidential general election campaign.


--
The sheer number of polls might be expected to bring about a number of changes. They did not. The map and Spectrum stayed exactly the same despite a number of polls in the most competitive states. Only on the Watch List were there any noticeable tweaks. And there, it was a matter of removing New Jersey and adding Ohio and Virginia. Only Ohio is particularly consequential. It moved back under a one point advantage for Clinton and is thus within a point of shifting into Trump's column. But the Buckeye is almost as far away as it can be and continue on the Watch List (Clinton +0.98).

NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2016 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
MD-102 (13)	WA-12 (162)	NH-4 (263)	SC-9 (154)	MT-3 (53)
HI-4 (17)	NJ-14 (176)	CO-94 (272 | 275)	AK-3 (145)	AR-6 (50)
VT-3 (20)	OR-7 (183)	FL-29 (301 | 266)	TX-38 (142)	ND-3 (44)
CA-55 (75)	NM-5 (188)	NC-15 (316 | 237)	MS-6 (104)	KY-8 (41)
MA-11 (86)	ME-23 (190)	OH-18 (334 | 222)	IN-11 (98)	NE-53 (33)
NY-29+13 (116)	MN-10 (200)	NV-6 (340 | 204)	UT-6 (87)	AL-9 (28)
IL-20 (136)	MI-16 (216)	IA-6 (198)	KS-6 (81)	OK-7 (19)
DE-3 (139)	WI-10 (226)	AZ-11 (192)	LA-8 (75)	ID-4 (12)
CT-7 (146)	VA-13 (239)	GA-16+13 (181)	TN-11 (67)	WV-5 (8)
RI-4 (150)	PA-20 (259)	MO-10 (164)	SD-3 (56)	WY-3 (3)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. 2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Colorado (all Clinton's toss up states plus Colorado), he would have 275 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Trumps's is on the right in bold italics. To keep the figure to 50 cells, Washington, DC and its three electoral votes are included in the beginning total on the Democratic side of the spectrum. The District has historically been the most Democratic state in the Electoral College. 3 Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral college votes to candidates in a more proportional manner. The statewide winner receives the two electoral votes apportioned to the state based on the two US Senate seats each state has. Additionally, the winner within a congressional district is awarded one electoral vote. Given current polling, all five Nebraska electoral votes would be allocated to Trump. In Maine, a split seems more likely. Trump leads in Maine's second congressional district while Clinton is ahead statewide and in the first district. She would receive three of the four Maine electoral votes and Trump the remaining electoral vote. Those congressional district votes are added approximately where they would fall in the Spectrum above. 4 Colorado is the state where Clinton crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line. Currently, Colorado is in the Toss Up Clinton category.

NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Clinton and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.

The Watch List1
State	Switch
Maine CD2	from Toss Up Trump	to Lean Trump
Mississippi	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Nevada	from Toss Up Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
New Hampshire	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
Ohio	from Toss Up Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
Oregon	from Lean Clinton	to Strong Clinton
Pennsylvania	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
Virginia	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (10/12/16)

The Electoral College Map (10/11/16)

The Electoral College Map (10/10/16)

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook or subscribe by Email.