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Poll: Clinton romps in Colorado, Virginia; it's close in Iowa

Hillary Clinton seems on the verge of putting swing states Virginia and Colorado out of the reach of Republican nominee Donald J. Trump. The race in Iowa remains tight. Those are the takeaways from a trio of Quinnipiac University polls released Wednesday.

Hillary Clinton holds double-digit leads over Donald J. Trump among likely voters in Virginia and Colorado, and has a narrow edge in Iowa, according to three Quinnipiac University polls of battleground states released Wednesday afternoon.

Both major party candidates have negative personal-favorability ratings in each state, and most voters backing either one of them say the major motivation is to cast a vote against the other.

In Colorado, Clinton is up 49 percent to 39 percent over Trump in a head-to-head matchup, the poll finds. Her lead stands at 50 percent to 38 percent in Virginia. The race is much closer in Iowa, with Clinton beating Trump 47 percent to 43 percent, within the poll's margin of error for the state.

"The scary thing for Republicans in the Virginia and Colorado numbers is that they show a possible Hillary Clinton landslide in states that only eight years ago leaned GOP and before that had been GOP strongholds," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

Colorado has a skyrocketing Latino population, and Trump's negative remarks about Hispanics seem to have put the state out of reach for the GOP nominee, Brown said. Clinton is undoubtedly helped in Virginia by rapid growth in the north of the Democratic-leaning suburbs of Washington, D.C. Iowa is probably closer because the state has a smaller-than-average minority population, and it is home to many of the blue-collar workers who have formed the base of Trump's political support, Brown surmised.

Clinton is able to essentially tie Trump in Iowa on the strength of greater party unity, Brown said. She has the support of 97 percent of Democrats in the Hawkeye State, while Trump has the backing of 85 percent of Republicans, Quinnipiac finds. (Trump has a lead of 4 percentage points among independents there.)

The margins separating Clinton and Trump did not change appreciably when the Quinnipiac pollsters included Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein in a four-way ballot test.

In Colorado, Clinton leads Trump 41 percent to 33 percent, with 16 percent choosing Johnson and 7 percent for Stein. About 41 percent of likely Iowa voters back Clinton, with 39 percent for Trump, 12 percent for Johnson and 3 percent for Stein. Among likely voters in Virginia in the four-way race, Clinton tops Trump 45 percent to 34 percent, while Johnson takes 11 percent and Stein gets 5 percent.

The polls were conducted by live interviewers, via landlines and cellphones, from Aug. 9-16, surveying 830 likely voters in Colorado with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points; 846 likely voters in Iowa with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points; and 808 likely voters in Virginia with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.