New Poll: Clinton Leads in Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania
BURNETT: Breaking news. Hillary Clinton tonight building her lead in some crucial key battleground states. New polls show Clinton leading Iowa, Ohio and in Pennsylvania where she's opening up a double-digit lead. According to an NBC poll, Clinton at 11 points ahead, 48 to Trump's 37. And a new Quinnipiac poll from Pennsylvania shows Clinton with the 10 point lead, 52 to 42. Sara Murray is traveling with the Trump campaign. She is in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And Sara, these polls obviously are something the Trump campaign is watching very carefully.</s>SARA MURRAY, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, Erin. We know that they are all in in a number of these battleground states. He's been campaigning much more heavily in the general election than we ever really saw him do in the primaries and there were a couple of states where he does have reason to be hopeful. If you look at the latest Quinnipiac numbers in Florida for instance, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are basically neck and neck. Hillary Clinton is at 46 percent and Donald Trump is at 45 percent. Obviously that is a pivotal battleground in the fall. Let's take a look at what's going on in Iowa. This is an interesting poll. An NBC/WSJ/Marist poll and it does show Hillary Clinton with an edge. You see her at 41 percent. But Donald Trump is certainly in the hunt there. He's at 37 percent. Now, some of the places that might be a little worrisome now is that even though Trump is in the hunt in the latest Ohio polls, he is still trailing Hillary Clinton. And right now, Erin, the polls have him getting smoked by ten points in Pennsylvania and the Trump campaign has made no secret of the fact that they're really relying on these Rust Belt states, like Ohio, like Pennsylvania in hopes of coming to victory in November. So, certainly in a place like Pennsylvania, they want to close that gap and in a place like Ohio, they definitely want to flip the numbers that they're getting right now with Hillary Clinton -- Erin.</s>BURNETT: All right, Sara. Thank you very much. I want to bring back my panel along with our special correspondent Jamie Gangel who interviewed Republican Senator Susan Collins today breaking the news that Collins would not back Trump. David Gergen, let me start with you though on these polls. You hear Sara going through them. Ohio, both of the polls out of Quinnipiac and NBC, five points and four points favor Clinton. All these swing states obviously are not looking good for Trump. Exception though, Florida with Clinton only ahead one point. So Florida really looking like a dead heat, but Ohio, Pennsylvania, these are not good numbers for Trump.</s>DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: You know, you do have to say that Trump is doing well in the south, from Florida, you go up to North Carolina and she's a little ahead but he's very competitive there and possibly not in Virginia, but the rust belt states are critical in his path to victory, you can't get there without the rust belt states and the most devastating news today was Pennsylvania, you know, that's opened up a double-digit lead and --</s>BURNETT: In both polls.</s>GERGEN: Yes. In both polls and he's also behind in Ohio and think about what just happened here in the last couple of weeks. And just yesterday, Tom Ridge, former governor, popular governor of Pennsylvania, came out against him and thought, you know, he was a reckless president, that's in Pennsylvania. Next in Ohio, what's going on? He's got a war going on with John Kasich, the governor who was the most popular man in the state. You cannot win those states if the people who are helping -- if you dismissed people and were running them as hacks and people of the past, you have to work with them to win, and if he can't take Pennsylvania, it's very, very hard.</s>TARA SETMAYER, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R): And it's not only there, but the states are traditionally red, there was a poll that came out recently that showed Clinton up by seven in Georgia. You know, Mitt Romney won Georgia by nine points. Georgia hasn't gotten Democrats since 1992. Arizona is now a dead heat. Where Donald Trump was up at least six points, now it's a dead heat in Arizona which hasn't gone Democratic, I think once in 1992 since Barry Goldwater. This is a problem for Donald Trump, so if he can't even hold red states. Then, the battleground states like we're talking about, those are must win. You have to win Ohio. Utah is another state that people, you know, seem to think at all is just Utah.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>SETMAYER: In Utah he got his butt handed to him, 69 to 14 percent during the primary. It's 60 percent Mormon, that state does not like Donald Trump and now you have someone with an independent candidate coming in who doesn't have the chance for anything --</s>BURNETT: We could have more on that in just a moment.</s>SETMAYER: And Utah, that's very real. The Mormons don't love Donald Trump.</s>BURNETT: And we have a special report on that coming up. But Jamie, this issue, Susan Collins.</s>JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.</s>BURNETT: And you spoke to her and she said, she has never not voted for the Republican.</s>GANGEL: Correct.</s>BURNETT: In her life, right? There's never been a time she switched and always voted for the Republican. You asked her about why she's not supporting Trump and here's what she told you.</s>SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: Donald Trump, in my judgment, would make a perilous world even more dangerous. I worry that his tendency to lash out and his ill-informed comments would cause dangerous events to escalate and possibly spin out of control at a time when our world is beset with conflicts. That is a real problem.</s>BURNETT: You've now interviewed several high-profile Republicans who have made this switch. More coming?</s>GANGEL: Absolutely. I think that we're going see a growing number of people, and I think Senator Collins, look, this is not a complete surprise and she's been saying for weeks, for months that she was troubled and concerned, but the fact that she is coming out gives, I think, some cover to other people who want to come out. I asked her about John McCain who is one of her best friends. He's having a very tough primary. She said very carefully, that's his decision to make, but she also said, he has as offended as I am. And of course we've heard John McCain say that. So I think in the next couple of weeks, we are going to see that list growing and growing.</s>BURNETT: Boris?</s>EPSHTEYN: Well, again, we are concentrating on just a few individuals here. Fourteen million people came out for Donald Trump in the primaries and we are concentrating on a few GOP officials who of course we want us a Trump campaign, we want their support and we hope to win that support by the time November 8th rolls around and we are concentrated on the voters all over the country. Not on the specific polls in Utah, a poll just done in August 4th, Trump is up 37-25. In Ohio, when you count Johnson and Stein, he's only down by two well below the margin of error -- about four within the margin of error. If you don't count those, so if you look at the whole picture right now, Donald Trump is doing fine.</s>MCENANY: But we ignore the fact that he ran against Republicans in Washington. Despite that, he has the endorsement of 37 senators, 25 governors, 166 House members. I'm surprised he has that many because he ran on the notion that these people have failed you, and I will bring in a new order of people in Washington. We never focus on the fact that he does have a myriad of endorsements despite the fact he ran against the very people who are endorsing him.</s>BURNETT: All right. All staying with me. And next, Donald Trump in danger of losing the must-win state of Utah. Coming out, how a conservative Mormon could make the entire difference in the electoral map. Plus, this man's son committed the worst domestic terrorist attack since 9/11. And yet he's standing right there behind Hillary Clinton at a rally last night. Why was he there?