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UPI/CVoter state poll: Three states key to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump winning election

By Eric DuVall

The final UPI/CVoter state-by-state polls prior to Tuesday's election, Hillary Clinton has a much wider path to the presidency in the Electoral College than Donald Trump. Among the four states that are a pure tossup, the Republican must win at least three.

Not counting those four tossup states, Clinton would have 259 electoral votes to Trump's 209 if the election were held today. Candidates need 270 electoral votes to win. There are four states in the UPI/CVoter 50-plus-one analysis in which the two candidates are separated by less than 1 percentage point: Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Iowa. In this scenario, Iowa's six electoral votes are essentially irrelevant because they are not enough to tip the balance to either candidate.

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Put simply, assuming no surprises elsewhere, Clinton can clinch the White House by winning any one of three states, Florida, Pennsylvania or North Carolina. Conversely, Trump must win all three and hold Ohio, where his lead is barely out of the tossup range, at 1.2 points. A Clinton victory there would also push her past 270.

Leads in other battleground states have become more comfortable for both candidates, reflecting the lack of indecision as voters settle on a choice. Clinton holds leads of more than 3 points in Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and New Hampshire. Other than his slim margin in Ohio, Trump has solidified leads of more than 5 points in two other states, Arizona and Georgia, that have not been battlegrounds in the past, but where Clinton mounted late challenges when Trump's campaign bottomed out in October in the wake of the Access Hollywood video.

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The UPI/CVoter 50-plus-one battleground state analysis is done by examining respondents in the daily online tracking poll in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia over the course of seven days. The poll, conducted between Oct. 30-Nov. 6, tracks 250 likely voters in each state every week, leading to a state representative sample size of 500 voters, leading to about 12,500 interviews every week.

Because the poll is conducted online, a margin of error is not applicable. The poll has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points.

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