This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on September 19, 2016 If you focus on the national presidential horse-race polls, Hillary Clinton has a sliver of a lead over Donald Trump—by nine-tenths of a point in the RealClearPolitics.com average of major national polls in the two-way trial heat, 44.9 to 44 percent; by seven-tenths of a point in the four-way heat, 41 to 40.3 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson third at 8.6 percent and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, with 3.1 percent.
InsideGov | GraphiqObviously the race will be decided by the Electoral College, not a national popular vote. But as a general rule, the vote percentages in the battleground states move in tandem with the national numbers. An example is the CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker online poll of 4,250 registered voters in 11 swing states that has Clinton and Trump tied at 42 percent, Johnson with 7 percent, and Stein with 2 percent. Polling in the swing states tends to lag behind the national surveys. Good polls are released in each state every week or so,
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