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Donald Trump Vs. Hillary Clinton Latest Polls: Trump Tightens Electoral College Race, Clinton Leads Nationally

By Jonathan Vankin
Published on: 16:00 PST, Jun 16, 2016

Donald Trump pulled closer in a state poll against Hillary Clinton this week, creating a tight contest in the Electoral College — the body that actually votes to pick the next President of the United States — even as Clinton hammered Trump in a series of new polls in the national head-to-head matchup between the presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees.

A new poll released Thursday by Public Policy Polling showed that, in the state of Virginia, with its 13 electoral votes, Trump has closed the gap on Clinton to just three percentage points. While Clinton has led in every poll taken in the state since Trump announced his candidacy for president one year ago, the new poll narrowed her lead in the Election Graphs polling average to just 3.2 points.

That moved Virginia into the “weak” category for Hillary Clinton, the category of states in which Clinton leads by under five percentage points. The addition makes seven states in which Clinton leads by fewer than five points, and if Trump can win all of those states, he wins 307 electoral votes — 37 more than required to take the White House.

In fact, Trump needs to win only six of those seven states — Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada in addition to Virginia — to win the presidency. Of course, that scenario would also mean that Trump wins all five of his own “weak” states, in addition to the other states in which he now leads in the polls.

But in nationwide polls, Hillary Clinton is apparently pulling away from Donald Trump. Watch an ABC News report about a new poll conducted by the network in the video below.

In addition to the ABC poll, a new Ipsos/Reuters tracking poll showed Hillary Clinton opening up a nine-point national lead over Trump, while a Bloomberg News poll earlier in the week showed a whopping 12-point nationwide lead for the Democrat, who would, if the nationwide polling holds, become the first woman ever elected to the U.S. presidency in the nation’s 240-year history.

According to the Huffington Post Pollster average of polls, Clinton leads Trump by a healthy 6.4 percentage points, 44.7 to 38.3.

However, the Pollster average also shows 17 percent of voters saying that they have not yet decided how they will vote or plan to vote another candidate from a minor political party.

But the new ABC News poll holds what could be the worst news of all for Donald Trump — an “unfavorability” rating that makes Trump, at least at the present time, perhaps the most disliked presidential candidate of all time.

In the ABC News/Washington Post poll, a full 70 percent of Americans polled said that they held an “unfavorable” view of Donald Trump, with only 29 percent saying that they thought “favorably” of Trump.

Hillary Clinton also has very high unfavorable ratings, at 55 percent to just 43 percent favorable — but what would be troubling numbers for Clinton under most circumstances are dwarfed by the staggering dislike among Americans toward Trump.

Trump does even more poorly with minority groups, as an incredible 94 percent of African-Americans hold an unfavorable opinion of Trump, while 89 percent of Hispanic voters also dislike the presumptive Republican nominee.

Clinton fares much better among black and Latino voters, with “favorable” ratings of 79 and 64 percent respectively.

MORE ELECTION COVERAGE FROM THE INQUISITR:

White voters do not like either candidate very much, according to the latest poll. Only 31 percent of whites say they feel favorably toward Clinton, and 39 percent say the same about Donald Trump.

But Donald Trump can take heart from the state polls, which show that while defeating Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College remains unlikely, it at least appears possible for the controversial Republican.

[Featured Photos By Chip Somodevilla — GettyImages / Jim Cole — Associated Press]

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