Week 9 General Election Projection

<

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

You will notice that the map looks a little different this week. The one big difference is Missouri which I will get into later.

After looking at my Weeks 4&5 Projection and the maps I have produced in the weeks since I realized that I have not been following my own guidelines. This weeks map does follow that guideline so states for both candidates have changed shading this week.

New Jersey went from a safe Clinton state to a likely Clinton state as she leads in the trend 46-36% which places the state in the 5-14% likely range. Her numbers have not changed just the shading.

Georgia went from a likely Trump state to a lean Trump state. His trend lead is 44-40%.

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota have all gone from safe Clinton to likely Clinton with her trend leads being 45-37% in Michigan, 46-37% in Wisconsin, and leading in the last poll in Minnesota 43-38%.

I would highly expect all three of these along with Georgia, Kansas, and Utah for Trump to all go to safe or likely status in the next month after the conventions are over.

Colorado went from lean Clinton to likely Clinton with her lead being 43-38%

The big mover is Missouri which went from a lean Clinton to now a likely Trump with the newest poll in the state showing him with a 46-36% lead. This poll is from PPP which a Democratic leaning poll (earlier considered to be biased by Trump by now embraced by him).

The national polls got a lot closer this week as did some of the "toss-up" states. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida all had polls showing Trump either closing the gap or taking the lead. Not enough movement to cause a trend shift but noticeable all the same. We also saw polls out of Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia showing Clinton's lead in those states expanding.

In the prior weeks we saw Trumps numbers sink as the controversy over his reaction to the attack at Pulse reverberated throughout the nation. This past week saw the closing of the email scandal, which, while absolving her of breaking the law, still left a mark on her campaign.

I would expect for Trump to gain even more and begin taking over Clinton in national polls during and after the Republican Convention this coming week.

As a comparison, on July 15, 2012 President Obama lead Mitt Romney 46.2-45.7%, Clinton currently leads Trump 43.1-40.1%.

In conclusion Clinton currently leads Trump on the delegate score card 364 delegates (172 safe, 72 likely, 120 leaning) to 174 (142 safe, 16 likely, 16 lean).

538.com currently gives Clinton a 66.7% chance to become president. This is down from 77.8% she saw last week. They have her winning 310.8 delegates, Trump with 226.4 and Johnson 0.8

Real Clear Politics has Clinton's lead at 209 (119 safe, 35 likely, 55 lean) to Trump's 164 (69 safe, 14 likely, 81 lean).

Clinton lost a delegate with some changes in states. Trump stayed the same but saw a lot of his former safe states go to lean.

They list their toss up states now as Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, and again Maine Congressional District 2. That's 165 delegates now in the toss up category, up 1 from last week.

Colorado has become a Lean Clinton (9 delegates), while Wisconsin went from a Lean Clinton to a toss up (10 delegates).

I continue to be confused by their methodology in how they place states in categories. They list Colorado and Wisconsin both showing Clinton with identical leads of 4.6% yet they are in two completely different categories.

This will be an interesting website to watch because they seem to pick and choose which polls to show.

Vice President Selection

I forgot to mention that Donald Trump has selected Mike Pence of Indiana as his running mate. No word yet of when Hillary Clinton will name her choice.