Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in the 11 pivotal states likely to determine the outcome of this year’s presidential election, according to the debut of POLITICO’s Battleground States polling average.

As the 2016 general election begins, Clinton holds a 5-point overall advantage in the POLITICO Battleground States polling average over Trump, 44.8 percent to 39.8 percent. That lead extends to the state level: Clinton has the advantage in eight of the 11 individual swing states.


The debut of the Battleground States polling average sets a baseline for the race to 270 electoral votes, focusing only on the 11 states most likely to determine the outcome in November — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. The basics of the average are straightforward: it’s based on the most recent public polls from each of the 11 states and weighted by each state’s representation in the Electoral College.

At the moment, the POLITICO polling average across the competitive battleground states is only marginally closer than the national polling average across all 50 states: The RealClearPolitics average gives Clinton a 44.1 percent to 38.6 percent advantage.

One reason is that polls are currently sparse in some of the battleground states identified by POLITICO. There hasn’t been a credible public poll of a Clinton-Trump match-up in Nevada, and in three other states, the polling average — which draws on the five most recent polls in each state — goes back to include some surveys conducted last year.

In some cases, those older surveys conflict with newer data — particularly polls conducted since Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee and consolidated much of the Republican vote. None of the polls included in any state are recent enough to capture either Clinton's clinching of the Democratic nomination, nor any impacts of this weekend's mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.

For now, the Battleground States polling average regards all the polls equally. These differences are unlikely to persist as the race unfolds, as an increase in general-election polling will eliminate the older surveys from the averages.

Moreover, many of the polls included here were conducted among registered voters, not those considered most likely to cast ballots in the general election. Many public pollsters argue that voters can’t say accurately whether they will turn out this far before Election Day, and those surveys don’t start screening for likely voters until the final few months of the campaign. Functionally, a switch to likely voters tends to help Republicans, studies show.

Through Tuesday, here is a state-by-state rundown of where race stands in the 11 states that comprise POLITICO’s Battleground States Project:

Colorado (9 electoral votes), Trump +11: Colorado is sparsely polled, despite its position as the tipping-point state in the past two elections: In other words, the state provided Barack Obama with his 270th electoral vote in both 2008 and 2012.

But the only public survey of a Clinton-Trump ballot in Colorado is a Quinnipiac University survey back in November of last year. That poll showed Trump with a sizable lead over Clinton, 48 percent to 37 percent.

For now, that stands as the only entry for Colorado and its 9 electoral votes.

Florida (29 electoral votes), Clinton +3.4: Florida, which will award 29 electoral votes, is the most important state in the Battleground States polling average — and one of the closest.

Clinton’s slight edge is powered mostly by the oldest poll in the Florida average: a late-April survey from the Associated Industries of Florida, which showed Clinton ahead by 13 points.

The four other surveys in the average show a much more competitive race: Clinton +1, Clinton +1, Clinton +3 and Trump +1.

Iowa (6 electoral votes), Trump +0.8: The polls are basically a wash in Iowa: Of the five included in the average, one shows a significant Clinton lead, while Trump has the advantage in two others. The two remaining surveys show a tied race.

Interestingly, the three disparate polls all come from the same source: Marist College, which conducted a series of surveys for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal in the run-up to the February caucuses. Polls from August and September gave Trump leads of 5 and 7 points, respectively. But a January NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll showed Clinton leading Trump by 8 points, 48 percent to 40 percent.

There hasn’t been a new poll in Iowa since January, however.

Michigan (16 electoral votes), Clinton +9.2: Clinton’s advantage in Michigan, which has gone Democratic in every election since 1992, is fairly consistent.

But the most recent poll, conducted last month for the Detroit News and WDIV-TV, showed a closer race, with Clinton leading by 4 points.

Nevada (6 electoral votes), no data available: POLITICO went as far back as last July, but there's no public polling in Nevada testing a Clinton-Trump matchup.

Unlike the other small battleground states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada has minimal civic engagement, said longtime Nevada political analyst and reporter Jon Ralston.

Ralston, a POLITICO Magazine contributing editor, added that the “24/7” nature of Las Vegas, the state’s population center, makes it particularly difficult to contact a representative sample.

“The newspapers don't pay for polling, and the universities don't do polling anymore. So only the campaigns do, and they leak when it's advantageous,” Ralston said in an email. “[It’s] been that way for years.”

New Hampshire (4 electoral votes), Clinton +6.8: New Hampshire is example of the polling being influenced by older surveys.

The two most recent polls, surveys last month from MassINC Polling Group/WBUR-FM and Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald, showed the two candidates neck-and-neck. But older polls going back to the immediate aftermath of the first-in-the-nation primary gave Clinton wider advantages.

MassINC pollster Steve Koczela said it’s too early to say whether the newer polls are necessarily more accurately measuring the state of the race in New Hampshire, or whether they are reflective of a short-lived Trump bounce that will level off now that Clinton is her party’s presumptive nominee.

“Timing is at least a factor that you have to look at,” Koczela said. “It was after Trump had locked down his nomination, but it was before Clinton and Sanders had finished their fight” on the Democratic side.

North Carolina (15 electoral votes), Clinton +2.6: All five of the North Carolina polls were conducted recently, but four of the five were from partisan or ideological outlets: two from Democratic automated pollster Public Policy Polling, and two live-caller surveys conducted by a Republican polling firm for the conservative Civitas Institute.

The Civitas polls from April (Clinton +12) and May (Trump +3) diverge noisily, and Clinton’s large lead back in April helps to contribute to her slight advantage in the average.

Ohio (18 electoral votes), Clinton +3: Clinton enjoys a modest advantage here, with four of the five polls, which go back to early March, showing her ahead.

The three most-recent polls point to a slugfest all the way until November. A mid-May online survey from CBS News/YouGov shows Clinton ahead by five points, but a live-interviewer Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late April and early May had Trump up by four points. Another late-April survey, from PPP, showed Clinton ahead by three points.

Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Clinton +4: Clinton’s strength in Pennsylvania appears to be entirely a function of one poll: an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist survey in mid-April that gave the former secretary of state a 15-point lead, 54 percent to 39 percent.

The other four polls, which range from last week back to late March, are Clinton +1, Clinton +1, tie and Clinton +3.

Virginia (13 electoral votes), Clinton +9.4: The five Virginia polls included here come entirely from two in-state academic pollsters: Roanoke College and Christopher Newport University.

While the older surveys provide a large Clinton lead, the most recent poll, a mid-May Roanoke survey, had Clinton and Trump tied.

Wisconsin (10 electoral votes), Clinton +11.6: The polls are substantially more consistent in Wisconsin: Going back to February, Clinton has posted a double-digit lead in each of the five surveys included in the average.

Perhaps most impressively, the most recent poll, on paper, could have favored Trump: It was conducted by the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies in mid-May, during the peak of Trump’s polling bounce. But the poll showed Clinton up by 12 points, 43 percent to 31 percent.

Democrats have won Wisconsin in seven consecutive presidential elections, going back to 1988. There’s little evidence in the data so far that Trump will be able to break that streak.