Polls show Trump’s path to victory getting narrower

Hillary Clinton is now leading Donald Trump by wide margins in Virginia, according to a new Washington Post poll.

The numbers released Tuesday show the Democratic presidential nominee beating her Republican rival 52 to 38 percent — a 14-point lead — among registered Virginia voters, with likely voters favoring Clinton over Trump 51 to 43 percent.

The numbers are especially striking because up until the last two presidential cycles, Virginia had been a reliably Republican stronghold. The Virginia poll is only the latest indication of Clinton’s current lock on traditional battleground states, with just over 80 days before Election Day for Trump to change the direction of the race.

Last month, the Clinton campaign suspended its television advertising in Colorado, where several public national polls have shown her leading Trump by a range of eight to 13 points.

And on Monday, Bloomberg Politics reported that the Clinton super-PAC Priorities put a hold on not only on its Colorado ads but also its scheduled airtime in Virginia and Pennsylvania, yet another key state where recent polls give Clinton a sizable lead.

“Right now, we are going to look at other opportunities for us to expand the map and potentially reach out to some new voters as well through voter registration and on-the-ground efforts in some of our key states,” Priorities USA chief strategist Guy Cecil said on Bloomberg TV. The super-PAC reportedly plans to resume advertising in all three states by the end of September.

Major election models such as those at FiveThirtyEight, Cook Political Report, Rothenberg and Gonzales, and the New York Times currently predict a clear path to a Clinton victory in November — even without any of the states they deem tossups, such as Florida, Ohio and Nevada.

If the models hold true, Trump would not only have to run the table on the tossup states, but he would have to flip a state currently favoring Clinton. In contrast, Clinton appears to have a far easier path to the 269 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

The various polls also suggest that the Republican nominee’s series of campaign-trail controversies may be catching up to him.

Though neither candidate is particularly well-liked in the Post’s Virginia poll, for example, the survey found that 54 percent of registered Virginia voters viewed Clinton in a negative light, compared to 65 percent who reported an unfavorable impression of Trump.

According to the Post, Clinton is managing to lead in spite of her unpopularity in every part of the state except for its rural southwest. And while Trump maintains a 24-point lead among white Virginians without college degrees, white college graduates reportedly favor Clinton 53 to 37 percent, narrowing Trump’s overall margin among white voters in the state to just 8 percent.

“The results suggest how difficult it could be for the GOP nominee to win what had been considered a crucial swing state,” the Post concluded. “With its changing demographics, especially in the fast-growing suburbs around Washington, the state may not even be competitive for Trump.”