STATE POLLING
New polls from Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. All three polls offer continued bad news for the Trump campaign, which simply cannot afford to play defense in once-reliable Republican states such as Utah (which has voted for the GOP in the last 12 elections) and Arizona (four straight for the Republicans).
Utah is an interesting case. The very conservative state is dominated by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons, who find Trump's style and substance very unsettling. LDS members strongly value humility and positivity, areas where Trump is neither, and are clearly upset over how their favorite son (and former presidential nominee) Mitt Romney has been treated by the current nominee..
Interestingly enough, Trumps refusal to endorse incumbent Senator John McCain in Arizona may actually help the long term Senator (and former presidential nominee), as Trump's support in the Grand Canyon State continues to drop. Clinton is receiving strong pressure from within her campaign to add the state to her "target list". Welcome to battleground status, Arizonians -- we hope you enjoy all the campaign ads you're going to see and hear for the next several months.
And in a state known for legal gambling, taking bets on who will win Nevada come November looks to be a straight-up 50/50 proposition at the moment. The latest poll swings it back to Clinton from Trump, but sill under the 1% mark, keeping the state in the "virtually tied" category.
Currently, Clinton has a 250 to 148 "safe" electoral lead over Trump with a projected lead of 336 to 192 (with 10 tied). Here are the current averages from the battleground states:
Leaning Republican
Missouri: Trump up by 4.3%
Utah: Trump up by 3.1%
Arizona: Trump up by 2.1%
Georgia: Trump up by 1.9%
Maine (CD2): Trump up by 1%
Virtually Tied
New Hampshire: Clinton up by 0.2%
Nevada: Clinton up by 0.6%
Leaning Democrat
Ohio: Clinton up by 1.6%
Iowa: Clinton up by 1.8%
Virginia: Clinton up by 1.8%
North Carolina: Clinton up by 2.7%
Florida: Clinton up by 5%
New Mexico: Clinton up by 5%
NATIONAL POLLING
New polls from NBC News/SM (Clinton +4) and Economist/YouGov (Clinton +5) that continue the post-convention "bounce" for Clinton. These are both four-candidate polls (the NBC poll gives Clinton a +8 in head-to-head, for example), which I feel are currently the better data sets to use.
Clinton has now led in seven of the past ten polls (with one tie). The current composite polling average has her leading by 2.5%, trending upwards.
TOP POLITICAL HEADLINES
President Obama Says Trump Is 'Unfit To Serve'
(Los Angeles Times) -- When President Obama declared Tuesday that Donald Trump was unfit to be commander in chief and suggested Republicans would be wise to break from their nominee, GOP leaders could be forgiven for discounting the advice of the leader of the opposition.
What they might not have counted on was that within hours, Trump himself would threaten to abandon them first. The high-wire political tactics from both Obama and Trump backed Republican lawmakers into a predicament amid another day of controversial statements and erratic behavior from the GOP nominee.
Obama said Republicans’ repeated denunciations of Trump’s actions — most recently for a spat with the family of an Army captain killed in Iraq — rang hollow if they continued to endorse him.
Trump's Battle With The Khans: Will It Cost Him Veterans' Votes?
(Christian Science Monitor) -- Donald Trump’s ridicule of the bereaved mother of a fallen Muslim American soldier has drawn bipartisan rebuke. As Republicans leaders distance themselves from the comments of their presidential nominee, the strongest reproaches may have come from veterans and their families.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina and Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona issued public statements Sunday and Monday that criticized Mr. Trump, while 11 “Gold Star” families of fallen soldiers demanded Trump apologize to them.
Trump has said he merely responded to attacks by Khizr Khan, the father of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004; the GOP nominee also said that he was criticizing radical Islamic terrorism, not the Islamic faith. But Senator Graham, Senator McCain, and the “Gold Star” families indicated this time Trump might have gone too far
Prominent GOP Fundraiser, Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman Endorses Hillary Clinton
(New York Daily News) -- Hewlett Packard top executive and longtime Republican Meg Whitman is with her.
The tech CEO formally endorsed Hillary Clinton late Tuesday, becoming one of the first high-profile GOP donors to publicly switch political allegiance instead of voting for billionaire braggart Donald Trump.
“To vote Republican out of party loyalty alone would be to endorse a candidacy that I believe has exploited anger, grievance, xenophobia and racial division,” wrote Whitman, explaining her endorsement in a Facebook post. “Donald Trump’s demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character.”
Trump's Vietnam Draft Deferments Come Under Closer Scrutiny
(New York Times) -- Back in 1968, at the age of 22, Donald J. Trump seemed the picture of health. He stood 6 feet 2 inches with an athletic build; had played football, tennis and squash; and was taking up golf. His medical history was unblemished, aside from a routine appendectomy when he was 10.
But after he graduated from college in the spring of 1968, making him eligible to be drafted and sent to Vietnam, he received a diagnosis that would change his path: bone spurs in his heels.
The diagnosis resulted in a coveted 1-Y medical deferment that fall, exempting him from military service as the United States was undertaking huge troop deployments to Southeast Asia, inducting about 300,000 men into the military that year.
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