Nov. 6, 2016, 6:15 a.m.
Final flurry of national and battleground state polls offers mostly good news to Clinton
David Lauter
The map shows projected results based Times reporting of poll data.Under this scenario, Clinton has 308 electoral votes to 174 for Trump; 270 are needed to win. (Los Angeles Times)
It's the Sunday before election day, and a final round of polls provides cheering news for supporters of Hillary Clinton and a bit for Donald Trump, as well.
The biggest win for the Trump side was from the Des Moines Register poll of Iowa, which showed Trump leading in that state by seven points, 46% to 39%. Clinton has struggled in Iowa all year, and she notably has not campaigned in the state recently.
By contrast, the Democrats have been pouring resources, including multiple visits by the candidate and top surrogates, into Ohio, and Sunday's Columbus Dispatch poll, which has a long and good track record in the state, indicated their investment may be a wise one.
The poll showed the two candidates in a near tie, Clinton 48% to Trump 47%. Clinton is winning among Ohioans who have voted early, the poll found — a pattern that has held true in many states. It also showed her winning among voters younger than 45 and, as expected, gaining wide margins among African American and Latino voters.
Trump has cut into Clinton's support in white, blue-collar areas of northeastern Ohio where Democrats have traditionally won, the poll confirmed. But it also showed him failing to gain the sort of margins that Republicans normally get in southwestern Ohio.
Meantime, a CBS/YouGov poll of Ohio has Trump up by a point, 46%-45%. Like the Columbus Dispatch poll, the YouGov survey shows Clinton winning among those who have voted early, but ig gives Trump an edge among the remaining voters.
A victory for Clinton in Ohio would shut off almost any path that Trump might have to get a majority of electoral votes.
In another Midwestern state on which Trump has pinned considerable hopes, Michigan, a final poll for Fox Channel 2 by Mitchell Research showed Clinton holding a five point lead, 46%-41%, with third party candidates taking 10 points in total. Clinton widened her lead slightly during the course of the week, the pollsters said.
The CBS/YouGov team also issued a final survey in Florida, showing a dead heat, with both major candidates at 45%. There, too, Clinton has a strong lead among early voters, the survey showed -- something that early voting statistics also indicates. But the poll suggested Trump may be able to catch up with Election Day turnout.
In New Mexico, the final Albuquerque Journal poll showed Clinton ahead, 45% to 40%, and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, the state's former governor, slipped to 11%, less than half the support he had when the newspaper polled the state in September. Johnson has faded by similar percentages in most national and state polls over the last month.
A Muhlenberg College/Morning Call survey of Pennsylvania, showed Clinton ahead, 48% to 42%, in a head-to-head matchup; 44% to 40% when third-party candidates were included.
Clinton has huge leads in the nation's two biggest Democratic-leaning states, California and New York.
In California, the final USC/Los Angeles Times telephone survey of state voters shows Clinton ahead, 58% to 32%, among likely voters. In New York, a Sienna College poll showed her winning 51% to 34%.
Nationally, the ABC/Washington Post tracking poll shows Clinton ahead by five points, 48%-43%, as she continues to recover from a dip that happened last week after FBI Director James Comey's announcement of new scrutiny of emails that may be related to her. Several days ago, the poll had shown the two tied.
Notably, Clinton had a big lead, 54% to 38%, among white women with college degrees — a group that Mitt Romney won in the last election but which Trump has badly alienated.
The final NBC/Wall St. Journal poll showed Clinton ahead by four points, 44% to 40%, with 6% for Johnson and 2% for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee. Clinton's lead was powered by a big edge among women, 53% to 38%, and among minority voters.
A final poll by Morning Consult for Politico found Clinton leading by 45% to 42%.
The USC/LA Times "Daybreak" tracking poll, which consistently has shown a stronger result for Trump than any other major survey, showed him with a five-point lead, 48% to 43%.
The re-weighted version of the Daybreak poll, done by Ernie Tedeschi, an economist based in Washington, shows Clinton ahead by one point. Tedeschi uses the poll's data, which is publicly available, and applies a different weighting scheme than the one developed by the USC researchers who developed the survey.
This post was updated at 7:29 a.m. with data from the CBS/YouGov surveys.
This post was updated at 12:14 p.m. with data from the Mitchell Research survey of Michigan.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-last-flurry-of-polls-provides-data-on-1478436452-htmlstory.html