Quinnipiac poll in Ohio: Clinton with 4 points lead
By Quinnipiac released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Ohio were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Ohio is traditionally a purple state, where the Democratic and Republican candidates have often won similar levels of support among voters. Therefore, the election outcome here is regarded crucial in determining which party will win the majority of electoral votes.
Quinnipiac poll results
Of those who replied, 49.0% said that they would vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while 45.0% revealed that they would give their vote to billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from July 30 to August 7 among 812 likely voters. Taking 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 often incorporate substantial errors, which is why they should be treated with caution. At least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, we translate them into shares of the two-party vote. This yields figures of 47.9% for Clinton and 0.0% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
If we look at an average of Ohio polls, Clinton's two-party vote share is currently at 47.2%. Compared to numbers in the Quinnipiac poll Clinton's poll average is 0.7 percentage points worse. This difference is within the poll's sampling error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll compared with PollyVote's prediction
The current PollyVote foresees Clinton to gain 48.0% of the two-party vote in Ohio. Hence, the PollyVote is 0.1 points above polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore in line with the poll's error margin.
