text: For politics fans, it’s easy to get caught up in fun Electoral College scenarios — ones in which small states make a big difference or in which the House of Representatives has to decide the election. The alternative — endlessly repeating that “Florida is important; Ohio is important” — can get tiresome. That said, Ohio is important, and Florida is super important. 
   
   Florida has a 19 percent chance of providing the decisive vote in the Electoral College according to our polls-only forecast. It’s the most likely “tipping-point state,” in FiveThirtyEight parlance. That’s up from 16 percent just two weeks ago. There’s only one other state with a better than 10 percent chance of casting the decisive electoral vote: Pennsylvania, at 12 percent. 
   
   Florida tends to be a crucial battleground state in presidential elections (more on this in a moment), but it’s become even more pivotal in recent weeks in the race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton has improved her position nationally and in Florida, but she’s made a bit more progress in the Sunshine State, moving it closer to the national average. Clinton leads by about 3 percentage points nationally and by about 1 point in Florida. That’s made it more plausible that Clinton could hold onto Florida while losing some light-blue states. 
   
   Let’s say, for example, that on Election Day, Clinton underperforms with white voters without college degrees even more so than she is doing now. Her support would collapse in the Midwest, and her troubles in Maine would likely bleed over into New Hampshire. But Florida is more diverse, with one of the largest groups of Latino voters of any battleground state and a sizable African-American population. So, in this scenario, the nonwhite vote in Florida might allow Clinton to hold onto the state even if she were to lose Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin. 
   
   And that’s a winning map: 
   
   If Clinton wins Florida, Michigan and New Hampshire, she can afford to lose Pennsylvania, where she’s held a lead even as she’s trailed Trump in next-door Ohio. 
   
   Indeed, winning Florida opens up so many electoral paths for Clinton that it’s probably a must-win for Trump. If he loses Florida, Trump wins the presidency only 5 percent of the time according to our polls-only forecast. (Clinton, on the other hand, wins the election 33 percent of the time without a victory in Florida.) Considering that Clinton has led in every post-debate survey in Florida and has a small lead there in our polls-only forecast, you can understand why Clinton is currently a favorite to win the election. 
   
   Florida has two basic things going for it that make it so pivotal. The first, as I mentioned, is how closely the state mirrors the national vote. It’s about 2 or 3 percentage points more Republican-leaning than the country at the moment. Nevada and Wisconsin are about as equally close to the national margin, and the only states closer are Colorado (the current tipping-point state according to our forecasts), New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Considering that the election is a little more than a month away and the inherent error in any forecast, it’s possible that the vote margin in Florida ends up as close or closer as in these other states. 
   
   The other factor that makes Florida important is its large population. None of the states listed in the previous paragraph besides Florida has more than 20 electoral votes. Florida has 29. It’s possible, therefore, for a candidate to lose smaller swing states and make up for those losses by winning in Florida. 
   
   No single state guarantees victory. The notion of a “must-win” state tends to be overplayed — instead, the states tend to move in concert, and the winner of the national popular vote almost always wins in the Electoral College. But Florida is about as close to an all-important state as we’re likely to see. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump is making the unprecedented assertion that the general election "is going to be rigged," and many people who are drawn to his presidential campaign have major doubts about the accuracy of the Nov. 8 vote. 
   
   Only about one-third of Republicans say they have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence that votes on Election Day will be counted fairly, according to a poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 
   
   Half the people who have a favorable opinion of the Republican nominee say they have little to no confidence in the integrity of the vote count, the poll finds. 
   
   "Trump has finally said something that that I've been thinking for years," said Jonathan Robinson, 30, a Trump supporter from Columbia, Missouri. "I don't think the votes have been counted properly for years. There's voter fraud and attempts to game the system. I don't trust it at all." 
   
   Such fears of voter fraud are unfounded. There is no evidence it is a widespread problem in the United States. A study by a Loyola Law School professor found that out of 1 billion votes cast in all American elections between 2000 and 2014, there were only 31 known cases of impersonation fraud. 
   
   Still, among people overall, only 4 in 10 have a lot of confidence in votes being counted accurately, though an additional 3 in 10 say they're at least moderately confident. 
   
   Fifty-nine percent of those who have a favorable opinion of Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, have quite a bit or a great deal of confidence, compared with just 29 percent of those who have a favorable opinion of Trump. 
   
   Overall, 35 percent in the poll say there's a great deal of voter fraud in American elections, 39 percent say there's only some and 24 percent say there's hardly any. 
   
   About half of Republicans, but only about one-quarter of Democrats, say they think there's a great deal of voter fraud. Also, 58 percent of those who have a favorable opinion of Trump think there's a great deal of fraud, while just 18 percent of those who like Clinton say the same. 
   
   Some Trump supporters said they are taking their cue from the candidate. 
   
   In August he made the extraordinary claim — one he did not back up with any evidence — that the election will be fixed. That assertion threatens the American tradition of peacefully contested elections and the essence of a fair democratic process. 
   
   Trump has continued to make the charge at other rallies. 
   
   In Michigan on Friday, for example, Trump urged supporters to vote and then go to a different polling place with friends and make sure "it's on the up and up." He said voter fraud is "a big, big problem in this country" but "nobody has the guts to talk about it." 
   
   While raising such unsubstantiated concerns about the fairness of the election, Trump said in Monday's first general election debate that he would abide by its result. Though he initially dodged moderator Lester Holt's question about accepting the outcome, Trump eventually said of Clinton, "If she wins I will absolutely support her." 
   
   But in a New York Times interview, Trump indicated he was reconsidering that statement. "We're going to have to see. We're going to have to see what happens. We're going to have to see," he was quoted Saturday as saying. 
   
   The poll also found that nearly 8 in 10 people say they favor requiring voters to provide photo identification in order to vote, while just 1 in 10 are opposed. 
   
   "Any objection to having to show voter ID is just wrong," said Etan Markowitz, 76, a Democrat from Culver City, California, who is crossing party lines to vote for Trump. "I think there is voter fraud: people voting more than once, and early voting and absentee ballots give too many opportunities for fraud. We need extensive reform." 
   
   Democrats worry that strict voter ID laws could lead to the disenfranchisement of poor, often minority voters who don't have ID. 
   
   While most Americans feel that new technologies have made vote counting more accurate overall, many have at least some concern about hackers interfering with the election. Forty-one percent say they're extremely or very concerned and 35 percent who say they're somewhat concerned. Fifty-two percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats say they're extremely or very concerned. 
   
   The top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence committees say they've concluded Russian intelligence agencies were trying to influence the U.S. presidential election. 
   
   On Friday, a Homeland Security Department official told the AP that hackers have targeted the voter registration systems of more than 20 states in recent months. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and requested anonymity. 
   
   Julio Carmona, a 31-year-old Clinton supporter from Bridgeport, Connecticut, asked: "If these people can go into the DNC and hack, who is to say that that can't get there and sway the vote to Trump? What if the Russians really can do something like that?" 
   
   ___ 
   
   The AP-NORC poll of 1,022 adults was conducted Sept. 15-18 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. 
   
   Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone. 
   
   ___ 
   
   Online: 
   
   AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/ 
   
   ___ 
   
   Follow Jonathan Lemire and AP Polling Editor Emily Swanson on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/JonLemire and http://twitter.com/El_Swan
target: – Another year, another election, and Florida still continues to be one of the most influential states in the Electoral College. Political pundits have paid special attention to this swing state after its unique role in determining the winner of the 2000 election, and the story isn't any different this cycle. Polling and statistics site FiveThirtyEight—which correctly predicted the entire Electoral College map in 2012—estimates Florida is the most likely "tipping point" state for the 2016 election. Currently, Hillary Clinton holds a 1-point lead in Florida. Florida's large allotment of 29 electoral votes means Clinton could afford to lose several other states if she was able to hold on to Florida. Trump, data shows, does not have that luxury. The businessman needs Florida to put together any sort of plausible electoral win—at least according to current polls. Trump has made no secret that he doesn't trust the polls, and according to the AP, neither do his supporters. So at least in Trump-land, there may be more paths to victory that don't include Florida. But for now, experts say Trump and his campaign should be spending a lot of time down South in the sun. Read FiveThirtyEight's full post here.