Poll shows Hillary Clinton with large lead over Donald Trump in Colorado
Hillary Clinton has surged ahead in Colorado since the Democratic National Convention, according to a poll released Friday by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.
Clinton leads Republican nominee Donald Trump by 14 points in Colorado, a state once considered a battleground for the two candidates.
The poll, conducted Aug. 4-10 by Marist University, asked 899 likely voters who they would support in the presidential race. There is a 3.3 percent margin of error.
Clinton maintained her lead even when third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were added in, and Trump lost support when voters were presented with those alternative options. Johnson, a Libertarian and the former governor of New Mexico, reached the critical threshold of 15 percent of the vote in Colorado. Stein, a physician with the Green Party, received 6 percent of the vote.
In the four-way race, Clinton received 41 percent and Trump 29 percent.
This is the first poll since early July, when it looked like Clinton was up eight points in Colorado.
While Clinton has gained ground in Colorado, the poll shows incumbent U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, has maintained his large lead over El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn, a Republican. Bennet is up by 15 points, the exact same as his lead in early July.
The poll looked at other battleground states, and Clinton is leading in Florida, Virginia and North Carolina. The 66 electoral votes in these four states would be a significant win for either candidate as they battle to reach 270 and become the next president.
Many political tracking websites have switched Colorado and Virginia from toss-up-states to states that are likely to support Clinton. That could mean fewer political ads and stump speeches in the presidential race, and Bennet’s maintained lead could leave Glenn struggling to attract national players looking for places to shore up the Republican-held Senate.
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Contact Megan Schrader: 286-0644
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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets supporters after giving a speech on the economy at Futuramic Tool & Engineering, in Warren, Mich., Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)