USA DAWN: NEWS AND UPDATES

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks at a Women for Hillary campaign finance event in Washington, DC, U.S. October 5, 2016.  WASHINGTON  — Each night, Hillary Clinton’s data experts head to a conference room on the 11th floor of her Brooklyn headquarters, to start counting votes. The sessions in the “early voter boiler room,” as it’s been dubbed by campaign aides, stretch into the early hours of the morning. The team pores over turnout patterns in states where advance voting is already underway, projects how many votes Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have already received, and updates crucial targeting lists of the voters she still needs. For Clinton, October is when she’s likely to win or lose the election, not Nov. 8. By the third week of this month, Clinton’s campaign hopes to have a solid enough sample of the early vote to know whether the Democrat is on track to win the White House. “Many battleground states are already voting so...

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has built up a significant lead in several crucial battleground states, according to new NBC/WSJ/Marist polling released today. Clinton has generated double-digit margins in Virginia and Colorado with 13-point and 14-point advantages over Trump, respectively. The poll also showed Clinton with leads over Trump in Florida and North Carolina. In the Sunshine State, Clinton has a 5-point edge among registered voters. In North Carolina, Clinton enjoys a 9-point advantage. Losses in these states could be devastating for Trump. The Republican nominee’s clearest path to the White House requires wins in Ohio and Florida, where Hillary Clinton has a slight lead, as well as North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where he trails by a broad nine percentage points. Trump has been plagued by controversy since his party’s convention three weeks ago, clashing with the father of a fallen Muslim soldier, refusing to endorse House Speaker...

Hillary Clinton has one big advantage over Donald Trump heading into November: hindsight. Every step of her 2016 campaign -- from her embrace of the historic nature of her candidacy to her more personal connections with voters -- seems to be an acknowledgment that she's learned the lessons of her failed campaign eight years earlier. The efforts may be working. A national Washington Post/ABC News poll released Sunday found her leading Trump 51%-39% while a Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey found her five points ahead. Clinton still faces huge challenges. She is dogged by the controversy surrounding her use of a personal email server as secretary of state and has struggled with the perception that she's dishonest. Perhaps most notably, she has to figure out how to prevail in a year when major blocs of both parties are attracted to outsider candidates like Trump --and are weary of political dynasties. As her general election campaign kicks into full gear, here...