11 states flip toward Democrats in latest Cook Political Report analysis

The Cook Political Report maintains an estimate of where the 2016 election is headed based on current polling and analysis. Yesterday, Cook updated its analysis of the race in 13 states, with 11 of those states moving toward the Democrats. The Hill reports:

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Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin were all shifted from toss-up states to leaning Democratic. The “solid Republican” states Missouri and Indiana were downgraded to “likely Republican.” New Mexico is now solidly Democratic, and North Carolina is a toss-up after leaning Republican.

In addition, Georgia and Arizona moved from the “Likely R” column to the “Lean R” column. The only move (of the 13) that favored the GOP was a change in Cook’s rating of a Maine House race which went from “Solid D” to “Likely D.”

All of this adds up to a loss in November if the states in the leaners column for each party wind up where expected. Of course maps change over time so all of this could look much different by November, but Cook Report suggests, at least at this moment, it is in danger of looking even worse for the GOP. In this current report, the group held off on moving four more states, including Ohio, into the Democrats column:

With these changes, 190 Electoral Votes are in the Solid Democratic column, 27 are in Likely Democratic and another 87 are in Lean Democratic – enough for a majority. Yet another 44 Electoral Votes are in Toss Up. Although Iowa, New Hampshire and Ohio could shift to Lean Democratic and Nevada could shift to Likely Democratic, we are holding off on changes in these states until we see more evidence.

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Bottom line: Hillary is a weak candidate but Trump is the underdog in this race because of his low favorability with important segments of the electorate:

This has been an exceedingly unpredictable year. Although we remain convinced that Hillary Clinton is very vulnerable and would probably lose to most other Republicans, Donald Trump’s historic unpopularity with wide swaths of the electorate – women, millennials, independents and Latinos – make him the initial November underdog.

The Cook Report’s full breakdown of the current state of the race is here.

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