Hillary Clinton has done more than just stifle Donald Trump’s momentum in the presidential race. She's also established a far clearer path to winning an Electoral College majority than Trump, according to the latest battleground-state polls.

In the aftermath of the first debate, Clinton has opened up a lead in vote-rich Florida, according to two polls conducted there. The Democratic former secretary of state is also ahead in post-debate polls in Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia. And while her lead in some of those states is more precarious than in others, current polls indicate Clinton would win upwards of 300 electoral votes if the election were held today.


Three national polls conducted since the Sept. 26 debate — a Fox News poll showing Clinton ahead by 3 points, a CNN/ORC International poll that gave Clinton a 5-point lead and a CBS News poll with Clinton up 6 points in a head-to-head matchup — confirm her improved standing.

Add it all up and the national and state-level polling suggests Clinton, at least temporarily, has halted the tightening of the polls over the past six weeks — and likely ticked up slightly after outperforming Trump at last week’s debate.

POLITICO’s Battleground States polling average now shows Clinton ahead in nine of the 11 states that make up the project, while Trump remains ahead in Iowa and Ohio — including a post-debate Quinnipiac University poll in Ohio that showed the GOP nominee ahead by 5 points.

Counting the states where her lead in the polling average is 3 points or greater — and adding them to the states President Barack Obama won in 2012 (plus the District of Columbia) — Clinton would win 302 electoral votes to Trump’s 215. Only Nevada and North Carolina are currently within that 3-point margin.

While the average includes polls conducted both before and after the debate, it’s indisputable that the short-term trend favors Clinton.

In Florida, post-debate surveys from Mason-Dixon (showing Clinton ahead by 4 points) and Quinnipiac (Clinton up by 5 points) now have Clinton ahead in the average by 3.2 percentage points overall.

Two post-debate polls in North Carolina — Quinnipiac and Bloomberg Politics — show Clinton ahead by 3 points and 1 point, respectively. That suggests a razor-close race there, but a Trump path without winning North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes requires capturing virtually all of the remaining battleground states.

In Nevada, which will award six electoral votes, two post-debate polls conducted over the same time period offer divergent views of the race. A Suffolk University poll showed Clinton ahead by 6 points, while Clinton’s lead was only 1 point in a Las Vegas Review-Journal poll.

Clinton has more secure leads in her Electoral College firewall states. Trump was in Colorado on Monday for two rallies, but a Monmouth University poll released Monday showed Clinton up by 11 points. Trump is making a play for Michigan’s 16 electoral votes, but Clinton led a post-debate Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll there last week by 7 points. In the smallest battleground state, New Hampshire, Clinton was ahead by 7 points in another post-debate survey there. Clinton is also ahead by 7 points in Virginia, according to a Christopher Newport University poll, and her campaign has all-but-pulled-out of the state. And in Pennsylvania, Clinton maintained a 4-point lead over Trump in the Quinnipiac University poll.

With five weeks until Election Day, those Clinton advantages are not assured. While Clinton’s lead is 3 points or greater in seven of the 11 battleground states, she has a lead of greater than 5 points in only four battleground states: Michigan, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wisconsin. The race remains close in a handful of other states: Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, for example, the race was virtually unchanged from the previous Quinnipiac poll in late August and early September.

Trump also remains ahead in both Iowa and Ohio — two mostly-white states where Republicans are well-organized. There haven’t been any post-debate polls in Iowa, but the Quinnipiac poll in Ohio suggests he is maintaining his advantage there.

The national polls are split on the extent of Clinton’s post-debate bounce: Last week’s Fox News poll showed only a net increase of 2 points for Clinton, while the CNN/ORC poll on Monday showed a net Clinton bump of 7 points, and Clinton improved by 4 points in the CBS News poll.

The Fox News poll was conducted last Tuesday through Thursday, while the CNN/ORC and CBS News polls were conducted last Wednesday through Sunday. While all were conducted after the debate, it's possible the CNN/ORC and CBS News polls are reflecting more of the fallout from the debate, including Trump’s continued litigation of the allegations made against him by former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, and the disclosure this weekend by The New York Times of portions of Trump’s 1995 state tax returns.

A Morning Consult poll, conducted over the Internet for POLITICO Playbook, appears to corroborate this, showing Clinton with a slightly larger lead now than in the immediate post-debate period. Clinton led by 7 points in the new poll, conducted last Friday through Sunday. That's up from a 4-point Clinton lead immediately after the debate, and a pre-debate advantage for Clinton of just 2 points.

Polls can be a lagging indicator, but the more recent trend favors Clinton. A Clinton victory in Florida would shut off all other paths to a Trump Electoral College victory. And even if Trump wins Florida — and the toss-up states of Nevada or North Carolina — he can’t win the White House without flipping another state where Clinton currently leads in post-debate polling: Pennsylvania, Colorado or Michigan.