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Update September 2nd;
Iowa moving solidly to Trump, Nevada is, perhaps surprisingly, still in play. Pennsylvania tightening as is Wisconsin.
Based on current polling and the real world
Trump needs either Wisconsin,Virginia or Pennsylvania to win in the electoral College.
Two new polls show striking move to Trump, if this continues then Virginia will win it for him (259+13=272) but more polling required to confirm.
It would be foolish to only consider the election based on when state polls show a better picture for Trump (as was clearly shown in the misreading of polls for Romney by Republicans in 2012).
Iowa moving solidly to Trump, Nevada is, perhaps surprisingly, still in play. Pennsylvania tightening as is Wisconsin.
Based on current polling and the real world
Trump needs either Wisconsin,Virginia or Pennsylvania to win in the electoral College.
Two new polls show striking move to Trump, if this continues then Virginia will win it for him (259+13=272) but more polling required to confirm.
It would be foolish to only consider the election based on when state polls show a better picture for Trump (as was clearly shown in the misreading of polls for Romney by Republicans in 2012).
I have assigned North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa to Trump based on history and poll trends. If any was lost by Trump the election would be over anyway.
"If anti-Trump GOP come home Trump can win (Nevada) state http://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthPoll_NV_071116/ …
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Trump or Clinton elected as president in November? There's no mystery as to how to work out which will be inaugurated next January. Trump's victory map path is set out below.
Forget the "Will Sanders supporters vote for Trump/stay home/cave in and vote for Hillary" which some "pundits" (what a disgraced, debased, demeaned word since the Trump campaign exposed the entire class as shills, blind fools, shameless partisans) have been touting as the key to either Hillary landslide or a Trump squeaker.
Disregard "Ron Johnson's Libertarian party's time has come and he will take more votes from Trump/Hillary" ditto "Jill Stein's Green Party will take enough votes from Hillary to let Trump win." Ignore "Utah is in play for the Dem's" or its counterpart "Trump will have a massive landslide and win 400 Electoral College votes putting even California in play' and other such fantasies.
Do yourself a favor and don't click on the day to day Trump/Clinton head to head *poll results "Trump up by two, Hillary up by four' as they will bounce around (and are manipulated shockingly) from day to day, week to week. This especially at the early stages of the campaign, with the conventions usually producing temporary "bump's" which send the partisans and pundits (who should, and actually do, know better but, hey, it's a living) into frenzies.
Here's the story. The election will be basically won or lost in three states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania-that's all she wrote.
But, as always for the GOP, Florida is it right from the start. Lose it's 29 electoral college votes and there is no alternative path to victory for Trump.
So tough is the electoral college path for Trump that Florida is only step 1.To get to the required 270 EC votes the other swing states Ohio has to be won & Pennsylvania, which hasn't gone to a Republican since 1988 is the absolutely crucial key. In my opinion Trump with his "rust belt" appeal is the first GOP presidential candidate since G.H.W. Bush to have a decent shot at it. Here is Trump's (current) "best' map.
If Trump didn't win Pennsylvania then Virginia's 13 votes and New Hampshire's tiny 4 votes would give him exactly 270 but that's a hard row to hoe.
That's the background and since the aforementioned prognostication "tools' are of little realistic use what is the best mechanism available to see, at any point, which candidate is on track to winning in November?
It is the aggregate, or "poll of polls" for the three (or at most the five) states which are the determining ones.
Of course, if something dramatic happens during the campaign, an indictment or an attack or some "black swan"event which makes aggregate polls in a substantial number of states not normally associated with either the GOP or Dem's tilt massively (and permanently) in either direction then of course that would be that.
But failing that, then the aggregate guide is the only indicator that matters.
Popular vote does not necessarily indicate a win as happened with Al Gore in 2000 who had over half a million more popular votes than G.W. Bush. Conversely in 2004 Bush had over 3 million more votes than Kerry and only won because he won Ohio by a football stand crowd vote size.
Perhaps surprisingly what with all the hooplah, the media circus and the bitter primaries just ending, the key states are more or less exactly where they were ** in 2012! This may prove that voting is tribal and near unmovable excepting a major event like the 2008 financial crisis (expert analysis showed that election was in a dead heat right up to the crash.) On the other hand it may be that Trump's "bring back the jobs" appeal to the rust belt states may swing them just enough to bring them into his EC column and the presidency.
Finally, it is important when using the aggregate polls as a guide to check the trends as a pointer to how these key states may look in a week or two. For example one Florida poll had Trump up by 1 and Pennsylvania an exact tie-but of course it will take a few more such for Trump to move the aggregate number into his column,if it does. North Carolina had one outlier poll which distorted that state but, over time that will drop out and restore it to a larger Trump lead-that's how aggregation works!
Are the aggregate polls the infallible guide? Barring a "black swan" event they have proven to be the most reliable way of predicting elections, and it can be fairly said that if that is still the case then everything else is sturm und drang, theater, and pundits earning a crust via sensationalism and gross and or blind partisanship. Make it easy on your nerves and free up your time by simply checking into the RCP page now and then.
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