Clinton leads in Ohio by 4 points in new Quinnipiac poll
By Quinnipiac released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Ohio were asked for whom they will vote: Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Ohio is traditionally a swing state, where the Republican and Democratic candidates have historically gained similar voter support. Therefore, the election outcome in that state is regarded critical in determining who will win the majority of electoral votes.
Quinnipiac poll results
Of those who answered the question, 49.0% said that they will vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while 45.0% indicated that they would give their vote to businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from July 30 to August 7. A total of 812 likely voters responded. If one takes into account the poll's margin of error of +/-3.4 percentage points, the results reflect a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls should be interpreted with caution, as they can contain large biases. At the very least, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following comparison, we convert Clinton's and Trump's raw poll numbers into shares of the two-party vote. This yields figures of 52.1% for Clinton and 47.9% for Trump.
Results compared to other polls
Clinton is currently at 51.5% of the two-party vote according to an average of recent polls in Ohio. In comparison to her numbers in the Quinnipiac poll Clinton's poll average is 0.6 percentage points worse. This difference is within the poll's sampling error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The current PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 51.0% of the two-party vote in Ohio. Hence, the PollyVote forecast is 1.1 points below her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's margin of error indicates that this difference is negligible.
