Clinton leads in Ohio by 5 points in new NBC-WSJ-Marist poll
By NBC-WSJ-Marist published the results of a new poll. In this poll, interviewees from Ohio were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Ohio is traditionally a swing state, where the Democrats and the GOP have historically gained similar levels of voter support. This is the reason why the election outcome in that state is considered crucial in determining the overall result of the presidential election.
NBC-WSJ-Marist poll results
Of those who answered the question, 43.0% said that they intend to vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 38.0% indicated that they would give their vote to real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out between August 3 and August 7. The sample size was 889 registered voters. The error margin is +/-3.3 percentage points, which means that the poll results for the Democratic and the Republican candidate do not differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls often include large errors, which is why they should be treated with caution. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, we convert them into two-party vote shares. The resulting figures are 53.1% for Clinton and 46.9% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
Looking at an average of Ohio polls, Clinton's two-party vote share is currently at 52.8%. This value is 0.3 percentage points lower than her corresponding numbers in the NBC-WSJ-Marist poll. This deviation is within the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The most recent PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 52.1% of the two-party vote in Ohio. This means that Polly's prediction is 1.0 point below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus within the poll's sampling error.
