Bad news for Trump from Pennsylvania (and Florida)

The old adage is that there is little point paying attention to opinion polls in a US general election until labor day, the public holiday which falls on the 5th of September this year. Before that it is mostly background noise as the two parties prepare their autumn assault, and even the party conventions have in recent decades tended not to produce a decisive shift that means anything by November. But Trump v Clinton is a contest in which old adages do not seem to be all that much use, and Trump’s convention performance and behaviour since has been so catastrophic for his party that it does appear to be having some results where it matters.

Several national polls this week have shown Hillary Clinton building a strong national lead. On Monday, she had leads of 6 and 9 points in CBS News and CNN/ORC polls respectively. On Tuesday a Fox News poll had her leading 49-39 in a two way race. When the Libertarian and independent candidates are factored in the lead falls, but she is still clearly out in front.

Trump’s way round this is supposed to involve targeting Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, by hammering his message on immigration, terrorism and the need for a bold break with politics as usual.

Now comes a new poll from Pennsylvania, one of those key states. It votes Democrat and last went Republican at a general election in 1988.

But Trump not only won the primary there, by appealing to disaffected voters, it had been thought that his appeal to white voters there would at the very least make him competitive in Pennsylvania. So far it is not going that way.

In a Franklin Marshall poll published today, Clinton has an eleven point lead in the state. It is 49-38.

The polling averages in Ohio showed the pair pretty much tied towards the end of last month and it was a similar story in Florida, although we await more up to date polls.

In recent days Trump has behaved even more erratically than usual, got into a needless fight with the parents of an American war hero and refused to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in his primary race. He is behaving like a clown.

Trump had a possible path to victory, but it required him to come out of the convention stronger, convincing voters in those key states he must win to stand a chance. If he gets completely hammered in November, that Pennsylvania poll will have pointed the way.

Update: A new Florida poll, from Suffolk University, gives Clinton a six point lead in the state (48-42).