The Electoral College Map (9/27/16)

New State Polls (9/27/16)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Clinton	Trump	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
North Carolina	Meredith College	9/18-9/22	+/- 4.43%	487 likely voters	38	35	11	+3	+1.27
Pennsylvania	Mercyhurst	9/12-9/23	+/- 4.8%	420 likely voters	42	41	11	+1	--
Pennsylvania	Gravis	9/23	+/- 3.2%	949 likely voters	46	43	6	+3	+4.96

Polling Quick Hits:
There were a few pre-debate stragglers that made an appearance either late Monday or early Tuesday. Those polls have now been added into the mix.

North Carolina:
The trendline over the last week in North Carolina has shifted back in Clinton's direction. Whereas Trump and Clinton were trading leads in Tar Heel state surveys of late, the four most recent polls have found the former Secretary of State narrowly ahead. The Meredith College poll is part of that series and has turned the average back around. It had dipped under one point briefly, but has snapped back, remaining just off the Watch List.

The margin may be consistent with other recent polls, but the candidates' shares of support are a bit lower -- in the upper 30s -- than they have tended to be.


Pennsylvania:

Changes (September 27)
State	Before	After
Pennsylvania	Lean Clinton	Toss Up Clinton

While North Carolina has seemingly reached its nadir as part the mid-September Clinton swoon, the flood of new polling in Pennsylvania has it still very much on a narrowing trajectory. But it is less about Clinton shifting in the polls than about Trump pushing from the upper 30s into the lower 40s just below Clinton. On the weight of this series of tight polls in Pennsylvania during the early part of this week, the Keystone state has shifted just under the Lean/Toss Up line, joining Colorado and Maine in Toss Up Clinton territory.


--
Pennsylvania shifted down a cell on the Spectrum, turned lighter blue on the map and flipped on the Watch List. North Carolina, meanwhile, held pat across all three.

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
HI-42 (7)	NJ-14 (175)	ME-4 (264)	MS-6 (126)	TN-11 (56)
MD-10 (17)	DE-3 (178)	CO-93 (273 | 274)	MO-10 (120)	AR-6 (45)
VT-3 (20)	NM-5 (183)	FL-29 (302 | 265)	SC-9 (110)	SD-3 (39)
MA-11 (31)	MN-10 (193)	NC-15 (317 | 236)	AK-3 (101)	ND-3 (36)
CA-55 (86)	WI-10 (203)	OH-18 (335 | 221)	KS-6 (98)	ID-4 (33)
NY-29 (115)	MI-16 (219)	NV-6 (203)	UT-6 (92)	NE-5 (29)
IL-20 (135)	VA-13 (232)	IA-6 (197)	IN-11 (86)	OK-7 (24)
WA-12 (147)	NH-4 (236)	AZ-11 (191)	MT-3 (75)	WV-5 (17)
CT-17 (154)	RI-4 (240)	GA-16 (180)	KY-8 (72)	AL-9 (12)
OR-7 (161)	PA-20 (260)	TX-38 (164)	LA-8 (64)	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 274 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 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
Delaware	from Strong Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Indiana	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Iowa	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Clinton
Maine	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Nevada	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Clinton
New Hampshire	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
New Jersey	from Strong Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Ohio	from Toss Up Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
Oregon	from Strong Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Pennsylvania	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Rhode Island	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
Utah	from Lean Trump	to Strong Trump
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (9/26/16)

The Electoral College Map (9/25/16)

The Electoral College Map (9/24/16)

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