A new tracking poll released hours before the first presidential debate shows Donald Trump edging Hillary Clinton in six of 12 battleground states, earning him enough votes in the Electoral College to win the presidency.
Trump currently leads his Democratic opponent by 4 percentage points or less in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina and Virginia, according to the UPI-CVoter poll released Monday.
With victories in those six swing states and 23 other reliably red states, the latest poll suggests Trump would secure 292 electoral votes if the election were held today. Clinton, meanwhile, would pick up Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, giving her 246 of the 270 votes needed to make it to the Oval Office.
The 12 states where Trump and Clinton carry leads of 5 percentage points or less offer a total of 156 electoral votes, leaving the two candidates tied at 191-191 votes each when those states are excluded. If Trump were to lose just two of the battleground states he currently carries, Clinton would win the presidency.
Other electoral prediction maps have consistently shown Clinton leading the race to 270 electoral votes by assuming she wins 19 states that have voted Democratic in the last six presidential elections and at least one other battleground state,
The UPI tracking poll of 500 likely voters in each state was conducted between Sept. 12-25. Results contain a margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points.
