Ohio: Clinton tied with Trump in latest Suffolk University poll
By Suffolk University released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Ohio were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
Historically, Ohio has been a battleground state, in which neither of the two major parties has had overwhelming support to secure that state's electoral college votes. This is why predictions here are of particular importance.
Suffolk University poll results
The results show that former First Lady Hillary Clinton and billionaire Donald Trump can draw on the exact same level of support, each with 44.0% of the vote.
The poll was in the field between July 18 and July 20. The sample size was 500 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-4.4 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls may contain large biases, and should be interpreted with caution. At least, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, you can convert them into two-party vote shares. The results of the actual poll mean 50.0 % for Clinton and 50.0 % for Trump in the two-party vote share.
Results in comparison to other polls
When compared to the average results of other polls Clinton performed worse with 1.5 percentage points, while Trump did better with 1.5 percentage points. This deviation is outside the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The most recent PollyVote predicts Clinton to gain 51.0% and Trump 49.0% of the two-party vote in Ohio. Clinton has 1.0 percentage points less and Trump has 1.0 percentage points more when the results of the poll are compared to the combined PollyVote forecast for Ohio. Again, a look at the poll's error margin indicates that this deviation is significant.
