Clinton leads in Ohio by 4 points in latest Monmouth poll
By Monmouth published the results of a new poll. In this poll, participants from Ohio were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
In Ohio, the popular vote is often close. Therefore, the state is commonly regarded as a purple state, which makes it particularly interesting from a forecasting perspective.
Monmouth poll results
Of those who replied, 43.0% said that they would vote for former First Lady Hillary Clinton, whereas 39.0% indicated that they would give their vote to businessman Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted from August 18 to August 21, among a random sample of 402 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-4.9 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
In general, however, don't have too much faith in the results of single polls, as they can incorporate large errors. Instead of trusting the results from single polls, the recommended strategy use combined polls or, even better, a combined forecast that relies on different methods and data.
For the following comparison, we convert the candidates' raw poll numbers into shares of the two-party vote. The respective figures are 52.4% for Clinton and 47.6% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
Looking at an average of Ohio polls, Clinton's two-party vote share is currently at 51.9%. This value is 0.5 percentage points lower than her respective numbers in the Monmouth poll. This margin is within the poll's sampling error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote prediction
The most recent PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 51.8% of the two-party vote in Ohio. That is, Polly's combined forecast is 0.6 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's sampling error.
