Is the aura of invincibility finally cracking around Hillary Clinton after months of scandals and negative stories? The latest set of swing state polling from Quinnipiac seems to suggest that Hillary Clinton is still very viable as a presidential contender, but the states she absolutely must carry are close enough to have her team rethinking the wall of silence strategy. They look at Ohio, Florida and – for some reason – Pennsylvania. (I should clarify that comment by saying that I love Pennsylvania, but it remains a case of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown as far as the GOP goes. Lots of promises which are never fulfilled.)

These early numbers are not good news for Hillary, but they also contain a few anomalies.

FLORIDA: Clinton 47 – Rubio 44
OHIO: Kasich 47 – Clinton 40, Clinton 43 – Paul 43
PENNSYLVANIA: Rubio 44 – Clinton 43, Paul 45 – Clinton 44

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida runs best against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 presidential matchups with eight top Republican contenders in three critical swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll released today. Voters in each state say by margins of 8 to 14 percentage points that the Democratic front-runner is not honest and trustworthy.

The former Secretary of State’s personal numbers won’t come as much of a surprise.

Clinton’s favorability ratings are 47 – 45 percent in Florida, negative 44 – 48 percent in Ohio and 46 – 48 percent in Pennsylvania.

She is not honest and trustworthy, Florida voters say 51 – 43 percent, Ohio voters say 53 – 40 percent and Pennsylvania voters say 54 – 40 percent.

Overall, I’m willing to accept that Clinton’s numbers and potential voter pool ceiling have dropped significantly from when the public only saw her as a retired diplomat. That wouldn’t be surprising even without the scandals, and have been amplified by all the exposure. But before we start refitting the West Wing with red carpeting, there still seem to be a few notes of caution buried in what Quinnipiac is reporting. First of all, the Ohio numbers are really only showing Kasich beating her and a tie with Rand Paul. Kasich is getting the benefit of being the home town guy with name ID nearly as high as Clinton’s on his home turf. If you polled South Carolina you’d find Lindsey Graham beating her too, but that’s an outlier in the extreme. To a certain extent we might say the same thing about both Bush and Rubio in Florida, though that state is a strange bird which is tough to call in the best of times.

The second thing to note is that the only person with a serious number of non-home states where they are challenging Clinton remains Rand Paul. I’m not trying to burst anyone’s bubble, but how many people here honestly think that Rand has a shot at the nomination? In terms of beating Hillary we need to keep ourselves in the realm of reality. (Of course, now that The Donald is in the race, who knows? All bets may be off.)