PHILADELPHIA — Axiom Strategies, a polling firm, is doing multiple polls of what it deems to be, based on previous election results, battleground counties — indeed some of them are the same counties I picked as battleground counties in an article in the Washington Examiner. Its most recent polls were conducted on July 15, in the week before the Republican National Convention, and in each of the seven counties they found Donald Trump to be running stronger than in its previous polls conducted June 6.
The following is a table showing their July 15 results and the margin, rounded off, between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in each county in November 2012. The third number shows the difference; keep in mind that since I’m matching margins the results roughly double the percentage of voters who have changed their minds.
| County | 7/15/2016 | 2012 | Margin change |
| Luzerne, Pa. (Wilkes-Barre) | Trump +23 | Obama +5 | GOP +28 |
| Washoe, Nev. (Reno) | Trump +12 | Obama +4 | GOP +16 |
| Sandusky, Ohio (Fremont) | Trump +11 | Obama +3 | GOP +14 |
| Watauga, N.C. (Boone) | Trump +7 | Obama +3 | GOP +10 |
| Hillsborough, Fla. (Tampa) | Trump +3 | Obama +7 | GOP +10 |
| Jefferson, Colo. (Lakewood) | Trump +1 | Obama +5 | GOP +6 |
| Loudoun, Va. (Leesburg) | Clinton +3 | Obama +4 | Repub +1 |
As you can see, Trump is running far ahead of Mitt Romney in counties with lots of non-college-educated whites, while he is running only somewhat ahead in the affluent Denver suburbs and not perceptibly ahead in the high-tech, high-education Washington exurbs. This comports with national trends, and with the perception that Trump has a better chance of carrying Pennsylvania than Virginia, Nevada than Colorado, and that he is certainly competitive in Florida and Ohio, which Romney narrowly lost, and North Carolina, which he narrowly carried.
