Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by healthy margins in four important swing states the Republican would need to win the White House. In Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, Clinton polls ahead of Trump, each by more than five points. That’s according to the new survey of registered voters in those states from NBC News, the Wall Street Journal, and Marist Polls released Friday and conducted from July 5 to July 11.
In Florida, the biggest and most important of the four swing states, Clinton leads Trump by 7 points in the NBC/WSJ poll, 44 percent to 37 percent. That result is in sharp contrast to a Quinnipiac poll released earlier this week that showed Trump slightly ahead of Clinton in the Sunshine State. Trump had been trending upward in recent Florida polls, so the NBC poll, if accurate, would suggest a reversal of that trend. While Quinnipiac’s Florida poll showing Trump ahead also found Republican Marco Rubio with a massive 13-point lead in his Senate race against Democrat Patrick Murphy, the NBC poll shows Rubio with a more modest 3-point lead over Murphy.
NBC’s Virginia poll, meanwhile, tracks similarly to other general-election polls of the Old Dominion, giving Clinton a 9-point lead over Trump, 44 percent to 35 percent. Clinton has led in all but one major poll of Virginia since the beginning of the year. And in a Fox News poll of Virginia released this week, Clinton had an 7-point advantage over Trump, 44 percent to 37 percent.
In Colorado, NBC finds Clinton ahead by 8 points, 43 percent to 35 percent. Fox News earlier this week found Clinton with a 10-point lead, and both findings are reflective of the polling trend in Colorado. And in North Carolina, the only one of the four swing states that voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, NBC found Clinton with a 6-point advantage, 44 percent to 38 percent. That’s the widest lead Clinton has had there in months, while Trump has led in a few polls of the Tar Heel State in recent weeks.
The results of the NBC poll, if accurate, reflect just how difficult Trump’s electoral map appears. If he were to lose all four swing states but hold every other state won by Mitt Romney, Trump would need to win every single one of the following likeliest swing states that voted for Barack Obama twice: Nevada, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Conversely, if Trump were able to win all four of the NBC swing states, he would still fall short of the 270 necessary electoral votes to win the White House—he’d need to pick off an additional swing state or two from the Democrats.
