Major 50-state poll shows leads for Clinton in key states

Washington Post/SurveyMonkey poll shows tight races in Texas and
Mississippi, and challenges for Clinton in midwest even as electoral
math looks rosy

Tom McCarthy in New York
Wednesday 7 September 2016 07.37 BST

A vast poll of tens of thousands of voters in all 50 American states published by the Washington Post on Tuesday showed Hillary Clinton with leads in enough states to bring her to the doorstep of victory – despite significant challenges in places Democrats have been winning for decades.

For Donald Trump, key parts of the Republican base are under threat, the poll suggests, even as he puts pressure on Clinton in states such as Pennsylvania, where she recently enjoyed a nearly double-digit lead.

Clinton leads Trump by more than four points in 20 states plus DC, giving her a solid base of 244 electoral college votes, just short of the 270 needed to win, the poll indicates. Trump leads by more than four points in 20 states, but these add up to only 126 electoral college votes.

The Post poll, with its wealth of data, emerged as Trump broke a losing streak of 40 consecutive national surveys by major pollsters showing Clinton with a lead in the presidential race. In a CNN/Orc poll of registered voters published on Tuesday, Trump led Clinton by two points, 45-43, in a race that included the Libertarian and Green party candidates, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. The gap was within the poll’s margin of error.

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