CNN-ORC poll in Ohio: Trump with 4 points lead
By CNN-ORC released the results of a new poll, in which respondents 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 GOP and the Democrats have often achieved similar voter support. This is why the election outcome here is considered important in determining who will win the majority of electoral votes.
CNN-ORC poll results
Of those who answered the question, 46.0% said that they would vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while 50.0% declared that they would give their vote to real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out from September 7 to September 12 among 769 likely voters. The margin of error is +/-3.5 percentage points. This means that the poll results for the two candidates do not differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, one should not have too much faith in the results of single polls, because they sometimes contain large errors. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, you can convert them into shares of the two-party vote. The resulting figures are 47.9% for Clinton and 52.1% for Trump. On March 6 Clinton obtained 53.8% in the CNN-ORC poll and Trump obtained only 46.2%.
Results in comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Ohio has Trump at 50.6% of the two-party vote. This value is 1.5 percentage points lower than his respective numbers in the CNN-ORC poll. This difference is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote prediction
The latest PollyVote foresees Trump to gain 48.7% of the two-party vote in Ohio. Hence, Polly's prediction is 3.4 points below his polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus within the poll's error margin.
