America's swing states, where presidential elections are won and lost, are swinging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Yes, there are still more than 90 days until the election, and anything can happen. But so far she is gaining where it matters most, notably in Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and elsewhere.
"The map is shrinking," said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York.
The key reason: "This is a race about who you can trust," said Charles Franklin, the director of the Marquette University Law School Poll, which surveys Wisconsin voters.
That means the 15 percent to 20 percent of undecided or independent voters will make up their minds less on ideology or issues than on personality. So far, that gives Clinton an edge. "This whole thing is a character election," said Carter Wrenn, a veteran North Carolina Republican strategist.
The swing states are considered those that have been close in recent elections. They generally include Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia. Some analysts add Michigan, New Mexico and Wisconsin.
But this year, Virginia and Colorado are seen as tilting safely Democratic. The Clinton campaign stopped advertising in those states this month.
Clinton edges mean that she can expand the map, said Miringoff. That helps her tie up resources for Trump in states such as Arizona and Georgia, which have been reliably Republican but are now showing signs of Democratic life. "Sometimes you like to fight on battlefields that aren't critical," he said.
North Carolina is in play because it went for Obama in 2008 but not in 2012. Trump and Clinton have been pouring time and resources into the state.
In Pennsylvania, a Franklin & Marshall College poll last week put Clinton up by 11. The survey found a familiar post-convention pattern: Clinton solidified her Democratic support while Trump has not done the same with Republicans.
Clinton got a boost from her convention. About two-thirds of those who watched the Democrats said they were more likely to back her. Trump was mentioned that way by 40 percent of those who saw his convention.
Trump has big hopes for New Hampshire, where he campaigned Saturday, pointing out he won the primary decisively. It's a classic swing state: President George W. Bush narrowly won the state in 2000, then lost it to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., four years later. President Obama won the state twice, though.
This time, Clinton is up by 15 in the latest WBUR/MassINC poll. "Clinton has solidified Democrats, Donald Trump has not done the same among Republicans and independents are starting to swing toward Hillary Clinton," said Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group.
In Florida, Clinton opened up a 6-point lead in a two-way race and 4-point in a four-way race that includes Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein, according to a Suffolk University Poll conducted Monday through Wednesday. She plans to campaign in the state Monday and Tuesday.
Trump's campaign profile has not been as robust in the state, but Luis Delgado, 46, of Orlando, said he was backing Trump because he wanted someone new in office and independent of what he called the "political elite."
He voted twice for George W. Bush but was disappointed with his presidency, "and I can see the same people financing him are behind Clinton. Trump's not part of that group."
He said he liked Trump's opposition to trade: "They're always screwing up the economy of the U.S. and sending jobs outside the U.S. while Americans need them."
In other states, a Rasmussen Reports post-conventions survey put Clinton up by 1 percentage point in Nevada.
There's no strong post-convention polling yet in Ohio or Iowa, but there are signs of trouble for Republicans. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich stayed away from his party's Cleveland convention and continues to keep a distance from Trump. Kasich was in Illinois last week, campaigning for Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who's been sharply critical of Trump.
In Iowa, Obama won by decent margins, but in 2000 and 2004, the race there was decided by less than a percentage point. This year, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Clinton wound up in a virtual tie in the February caucuses. But Barbara Allen, a Coralville independent who backed Sanders, is now in Clinton's camp. "I have no issues with her, but I really adored Bernie," Allen said. Trump? "He's just scary."
If all this isn't enough to suggest that Clinton is on the move, she now has an advantage in Georgia, a state that last voted Democratic for president in 1992, when Bill Clinton won by six-tenths of a percentage point. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution Poll taken Monday through Thursday had Hillary Clinton up by 4 points.
