LOC17:54
14:54 GMT
WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 (KUNA) -- New polls released on Friday showed Republican Donald Trump continuing a downhill trend against Democrat Hillary Clinton, losing ground in formerly reliably Republican states with only 19 days until the US presidential election.
Clinton and Trump were in a statistical dead heat in Georgia, according to a new Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) poll, and she has a double-digit lead in the former battleground of Virginia, according to a Christopher Newport University (CNU) survey.
In Georgia, Trump leads Clinton by 44 percent to 42 percent among likely voters, which is within the 4.3 percentage point margin of error of the AJC poll.
Georgia has voted heavily Republican in every presidential election since 1992, when the Deep South state last voted for a Democrat, former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton's husband.
A poll earlier this week showed Hillary Clinton leading in Arizona, another traditionally Republican state. Changing demographics and the divisive rhetoric of Trump have been credited with putting more states in play for Democrats in 2016.
The latest polling results indicated Clinton could lose Georgia and Arizona and still retain a big advantage in the Electoral College, which will determine the presidential winner once the results of all 50 states are in on Election Day.
The CNU poll released Friday showed Clinton up nationally by 12 points, 45 percent to 33 percent.
In other good news for Clinton, more than 3.3 million Americans have already voted, and among that group, Democrats have improved their position in North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Utah compared to this point in 2012.
Those results were revealed Friday via a CNN partnership with Catalist, a data company that works with progressive candidates, advocacy groups, academics and think tanks to receive detailed early vote return information this year.
Most US states allow early voting, although the rules for doing so vary from one to another. (end)
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