2016 Trump's incredible shrinking map Six of the 11 battleground states are now in Hillary Clinton's pocket.

In June, POLITICO identified 11 key battleground states — totaling 146 electoral votes — that would effectively decide the presidential election in November. A new examination of polling data and strategic campaign ad buys indicates that six of those 11 are now comfortably in Hillary Clinton’s column.

Clinton leads Donald Trump by 5 points or greater in POLITICO’s Battleground States polling average in Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. If the Democratic nominee won those six states, plus all the other reliably Democratic states President Barack Obama captured in both 2008 and 2012, she would eclipse the 270-electoral-vote threshold and win the presidency.


Even if Trump ran the table in the remaining battleground states — Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio — he would fall short of the White House if he cannot flip another state where Clinton currently leads in the polls.

The six states where Clinton is currently comfortably ahead show all the hallmarks of swing states that have faded from contention. And Michigan, a borderline battleground state last won by Republicans in 1988, appears the farthest out of reach for Trump. The Democratic nominee has been ahead in every public poll in the state since the July convention, with the last four surveys indicating a double-digit lead.

The Clinton campaign has never even bothered to go up on the air in Michigan — and other than a brief flight in early September, neither has Trump’s campaign.

Pennsylvania, which has moved in tandem with Michigan in every presidential election since 1980, is close to a must-win state for Trump: It is difficult to conceive of an electoral map without Pennsylvania that delivers Trump the presidency. And the Republican is set to spend $4.5 million for advertising over the final four weeks of the campaign there.

But the polling strongly suggests the GOP will again fall short: Clinton leads by 7.2 points in the polling average there. Of the 30 polls conducted in Pennsylvania since June, Trump has led in just one of them — a survey conducted in early July.

At the heart of Trump’s problem is a large deficit in the populous Philadelphia suburbs, where Republican candidates need a muscular performance to help overcome the massive Democratic margins that are typically delivered by the city of Philadelphia. The pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA Action is now shifting its resources to the Senate race, airing television ads attacking the state’s vulnerable Republican senator: Pat Toomey, who faces a tough challenge from Democrat Katie McGinty.

Virginia had voted Republican in nine straight presidential elections before Obama won it in 2008 and then again in 2012. But the commonwealth — with large percentages of minority and college-educated-white voters – is now firmly in Clinton’s column.

Clinton leads by 11.6 points in the polling average in a state where Democrats won every statewide election in 2012, 2013, and 2014 — and she hasn’t spent money on advertising in the state in months. Trump insists he hasn’t given up on Virginia, despite published reports, and he’s set to spend $1.6 million there in the final four weeks of the race.

Wisconsin and Colorado are likely off the board, as well. Clinton leads by 6.2 points in POLITICO’s average of Colorado polling, and while Clinton and campaign surrogates have visited the state in recent weeks, the campaign hasn’t seen the need to spend money on paid advertising there since July.

Clinton has never advertised in Wisconsin either, though she has made appearances. Trump is set to spend $1.8 million over the next four weeks in Wisconsin, but it’s a long shot -- he’s trailed Clinton in more than a dozen public polls conducted there dating back to July. And he didn’t help himself in a state that notably rejected him in the Republican primary by attacking the state GOP’s favorite son, Paul Ryan, after the House Speaker disinvited him from a recent event.

The polls in Wisconsin are closer than in some other states, owing in large part to Wisconsin’s large working-class-white population. But Clinton leads by 5 points in the average, and Trump is running well behind Mitt Romney’s performance in the Republican suburbs of Milwaukee that are essential to a Republican candidate running statewide.

New Hampshire is probably the most competitive of the states in Clinton’s column: The Democrat leads by 6.6 points in the polling average, but that’s accentuated by a University of New Hampshire poll released Wednesday showing Clinton with a 15-point lead.

Still, while both Clinton and Trump are competing for the state’s four electoral votes, Priorities USA Action has shifted its resources to the Senate race, airing television ads attacking incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte. Ayotte is locked in a head-to-head race with Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan – and, unlike in the Electoral College, New Hampshire has as much value in the battle for the Senate as a more populous state like Florida.

With six states now out of reach, there are five traditional battlegrounds still firmly in play. There’s one problem, though: those states alone wouldn’t provide enough electoral votes for Trump to overtake Clinton.

Iowa leans toward Trump: He has a 4.8-point lead in the polling average, and is better organized there than nearly anywhere else thanks to buy-in from the state’s Republican Party establishment. But both campaigns are actively contesting the state.

Trump has a slimmer advantage in Ohio: He leads by 1.2 points in the POLITICO average, and a Suffolk University poll conducted this week prior to the final debate showed a tied race.

But Clinton has the edge in the other three states. The former secretary of state has a 3.4-point lead in Florida — the largest and most heavily contested swing state. That’s similar to Clinton’s 3.6-point leads in both Nevada and North Carolina, two states that have remained stubbornly close.

With Clinton pulling away from Trump nationally in recent weeks, that has also brought a number of non-swing states into play. Polls this week in Georgia and Arizona give Clinton slight leads, though neither state has voted Democratic since the 1990s. Clinton and her allies sense opportunities there: Clinton’s campaign is launching television ads in Arizona, and Priorities USA Action is targeting Georgia.

Clinton could also challenge for one of Nebraska’s three congressional districts: the Omaha-based Second District, which Obama won in his decisive 2008 victory but lost in the closer 2012 race. But Trump’s chances of pick off an electoral vote in Maine are far better than Clinton’s odds of picking up an electoral vote out of Nebraska.

Maine’s two congressional districts have never voted for different candidates since it’s current system was established in the 1970s. Yet in Maine’s more rural Second District, Trump’s strength is undeniable -- while there isn’t much reliable polling available there, in the three surveys that have been conducted since September Trump has had the lead in each of them.

But perhaps the most unlikely competitive state is Utah, which has only voted for a Democrat for president once since the 1940s. Mormon voters are chafing at Trump, who is overwhelmingly unpopular there despite the state’s Republican orientation. Rigorous polling is sparse, but there are indications that support is building for Evan McMullin, a former House GOP staffer and Brigham Young alumnus running as an independent. The race in Utah could come down to a three-way contest between Trump, Clinton and McMullin — and ceding the six electoral votes there could put the race even more out of reach for Trump.

