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In North Carolina, meanwhile, Clinton enjoys a six-point lead over Trump among likely voters, 47 percent to 41 percent, with Johnson at 8 percent. (Stein isn't on the ballot in the Tar Heel State.)

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Hillary Clinton building big early voting lead in battleground states

BY Cameron Joseph follow

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Monday, October 31, 2016, 6:56 PM

With one week until election day, more than 23 million Americans have already voted - and it's becoming clear that Donald Trump has a lot of ground to make up.

Analysis of early voting trends shows Hillary Clinton is building a potentially insurmountable lead in some traditional battleground states, narrowing Trump's potential path to victory while fighting Trump to a draw in other states that are must-wins for the GOP nominee.

While there are some bright spots for Trump, particularly in the Midwest, early voting is reflecting recent polling that shows Clinton is likely to be the next president, in spite of recent news that the FBI is looking into newly discovered emails of a top aide.

“I'd rather be Clinton than Trump at this point,” said University of Florida Professor Michael McDonald, the head of the U.S. Elections Project and an early voting expert.

Clinton's numbers in swing states with large populations of Latinos and college-educated white people are looking especially good.

In Nevada, Clinton is building the same big early voting margin Las Vegas that gave President Obama an 8-point victory in 2012, and is holding her own in the swing county that includes Reno.

"It looks a lot like 2012," said Jon Ralston, the dean of Nevada's press corps. "It's highly unlikely that Trump will win Nevada."

Clinton looks just as solid in Colorado and Virginia, two formerly swing states that for months have leaned towards her in polling. In North Carolina and Florida, both states where a Clinton win would likely end the race, analysts in both parties expect nail-biters

North Carolina's laws have changed since 2012, and the biggest spike in early voting has come from independent voters, making apples-to-apples comparisons difficult. Republicans are doing slightly better comparatively than four years ago when Romney won narrowly, but Democrats think they're turning out more new voters.

"There are 94,000 Democrats who didn't vote in 2012 who voted early already, and 69,000 Republicans," said John Hagner, a Democratic analytics expert. "We're ahead of where we want to be."

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