A new poll of swing states finds Donald Trump running close to Hillary Clinton in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but also getting thumped in the crucial prize of Florida.
The Quinnipiac survey of registered voters shows Trump and Clinton running neck and neck in Ohio at 40 percent a piece, and Clinton edging Trump 42 to 41 percent in Pennsylvania. Florida, however, polls 47 to 39 percent in favor of Clinton.
The Sunshine State result is the biggest change since Quinnipiac’s most recent swing state poll in May, when Clinton’s lead was just 43 to 42 percent.
When Libertarian party candidate Gary Johnson and Green party candidate Jill Stein are included on the ballot, Clinton’s lead in Florida sits at 42 to 36 percent. She also leads in Ohio and Pennsylvania by 38 to 36 percent and 39 to 36 percent margins, respectively. Johnson polls between 7 and 9 percent in the three states.
Of the three major swing states, Florida “is Hillary Clinton’s best state and perhaps Donald Trump’s toughest lift,” Quinnipiac poll assistant director Peter Brown said in a release.
Florida, which famously determined the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, has a massive haul of 29 electoral votes and has been contested within a 5 percentage point margin in each of the last four general elections. Mitt Romney lost it by only a point in 2012.
Trump’s prospects there look even worse, possibly making the Rust Belt Trump’s best hope to somehow upend Clinton in the Electoral College. The demographics of voters there—more white and blue-collar than in a state like Florida—fit his pitch better, anyway. As I wrote of Pennsylvania in May, for example, a state that a Republican nominee hasn’t captured since 1988:
But whatever cultural and economic factors may help boost Trump in a state like Pennsylvania, recent polling among middle-class voters in the Rust Belt don’t favor him. A Bloomberg Politics survey of likely voters making between $30,000 and $75,000 in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin showed Clinton with a 46 to 39 percent lead, as of late May.
