The Electoral College Map (9/30/16)

New State Polls (9/30/16)
State	Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Clinton	Trump	Undecided	Poll Margin	FHQ Margin
Florida	Mason-Dixon	9/27-9/29	+/- 3.5%	820 likely voters	46	42	4	+4	--
Florida	Opinion Savvy	9/28-9/29	+/- 4.0%	619 likely voters	47	46	1	+1	+2.10
Michigan	Glengariff Group/Detroit News	9/27-9/28	+/- 4.0%	600 likely voters	42	35	10	+7	+5.99
Nevada	Suffolk	9/27-9/29	+/- 4.4%	500 likely voters	44	38	6	+6	+0.24
New Hampshire	MassINC/WBUR	9/27-9/29	+/- 4.4%	502 likely voters	42	35	4	+7	+5.76

Polling Quick Hits:
The end of the week brought another wave of state-level polls that were in the field completely after the first presidential debate earlier in the week. And that has folks out looking high and low for debate effects in the results. FHQ would urge some patience. There simply has not been as much state-level polling in the time since that debate to arrive at any conclusion. Now, there have been a series of national polls -- national polls with a time series with fairly regular intervals -- that have indicated that, but the evidence at the state level is still inconclusive.

Unlike those national polls, the state surveys are less regular in their occurrence. Take this MassINC/WBUR survey of New Hampshire. The last time the firm was in the field in the Granite state was right around the time the calendar was flipping from July to August; right after the conventions. Well, if you take those results and compare them with the just-released numbers, it shows a narrowing in the race; not a post-debate increase in the margin.

And this is not to suggest that there has been no effect. Again, the national polls have so far shown that Clinton got something out of the Monday night showdown at Hofstra. But it is more difficult sometimes to put state polls in their proper context. One not only has to look back at the last poll the firm conducted in the state (if any), but also explore where that firm's polls have generally fallen relative to other polls in the same basic time period.

All this is to say that the national polls are beginning to show a debate bounce for Clinton, but the state polls are not necessarily indicating that trend.

...yet. On to the day's polls...


Florida:
The two Florida polls also illustrate the state poll lag (or if not that, then the inconclusive nature of the post-debate results to this point). Compared to the last polls from each firm -- Mason-Dixon and Opinion Savvy -- the changes are pretty muted. Clinton gained a couple of points since August in the Mason-Dixon survey while Trump held pat, and in the Opinion Savvy poll, both candidates gained two points, keeping the margin at Clinton +1. Now, this point could be nitpicked to death if it came to that. But the key thing to look at now is the overall state of the polls. In Florida, the pre-debate polling was all over the place. Trump led some and Clinton led others. If the post-debate landscape displaces that trend with, say, a string of Clinton leads (with no interruptions), then something is probably happening. These two along with the PPP survey release from a day ago are perhaps beginning to hint at just that.


Michigan:
In the Great Lakes state, Glengariff had not conducted a survey since the very beginning of August. As was the case with the New Hampshire poll used as an example above, that time period was even more favorable to Clinton than the current survey is. There may have been some additional fluctuations had the firm been in the field in the interim period. All we can glean from the series is that Clinton is still ahead by a margin somewhere in the Lean area. And that is where Michigan has been for the most part here at FHQ. As such, this is an affirming poll.


Nevada:

Changes (September 30)
State	Before	After
Nevada	Toss Up Trump	Toss Up Clinton

The biggest change of the day is Nevada crossing back over the partisan line to Clinton's group of states. Still, comparing this one to the bulk of the recent polling in the Silver state, it does at first glance look like an outlier. First, there have not been a lot of Clinton leads in the polling there throughout September. And second, there certainly have not been any surveys with Clinton ahead by a comfortable margin. All one can say is that the last Suffolk survey had Clinton up two points during an August and early September period when the margins in other polls were similar. That trend may or may not hold with this poll.


New Hampshire:
The Granite state was dealt with above for the most part, but it should be noted that this MassINC survey is consistent with the polling that has been conducted in New Hampshire in September. Clinton's lead there has held steady and her FHQ average in the state has been comfortably in the five to six point range all along.


--
Obviously the Nevada change is the big ticket item for today. It turns blue in crossing over the partisan line. That is reflected on the map, Spectrum and Watch List. The other states represented in today's polls changed little if at all. New Hampshire swapped spots with Virginia on the Spectrum, but that was the extent of it.

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)
CA-55 (75)	MN-10 (193)	NC-15 (317 | 236)	AK-3 (101)	ND-3 (36)
MA-11 (86)	WI-10 (203)	OH-18 (335 | 221)	KS-6 (98)	ID-4 (33)
NY-29 (115)	MI-16 (219)	NV-6 (341 | 203)	UT-6 (92)	NE-5 (29)
IL-20 (135)	NH-4 (223)	IA-6 (197)	IN-11 (86)	OK-7 (24)
WA-12 (147)	VA-13 (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
Michigan	from Lean Clinton	to Toss Up Clinton
Nevada	from Toss Up Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
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
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 (9/29/16)

The Electoral College Map (9/28/16)

The Electoral College Map (9/27/16)

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