Ohio: 4 points lead for Clinton in latest Quinnipiac poll
By Quinnipiac released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Ohio were asked for whom they will vote: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
Historically, Ohio has been a purple state, in which no single party has had overwhelming support to clinch its electoral college votes. Hence, forecasts here are of particular importance.
Quinnipiac poll results
According to the results, 49.0% of interviewees are going to give their vote to former First Lady Hillary Clinton, whereas 45.0% would vote for businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from July 30 to August 7. A total of 812 likely voters responded. Given the poll's margin of error of +/-3.4 percentage points, the results reflect a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
In general, however, a good strategy is to not have too much faith in the results of single polls, as they may contain large errors. 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 convert them into two-party vote shares. The respective figures are 52.1% for Clinton and 47.9% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Ohio sees Clinton at 52.2% of the two-party vote. This value is 0.1 percentage points higher than her respective numbers in the Quinnipiac poll. 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 most recent PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 51.9% of the two-party vote in Ohio. That is, Polly's prediction is 0.2 points below her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's sampling error indicates that this difference is insignificant.
