Ohio: Virtual tie between Clinton and Trump in new Quinnipiac poll
By Quinnipiac published the results of a new poll. In this poll, interviewees from Ohio were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Historically, Ohio has been a battleground state, in which neither of the two major parties has had overwhelming support to secure its electoral college votes. Therefore, forecasts here are of particular interest.
Quinnipiac poll results
Of those who answered the question, 45.0% said that they would vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, while 46.0% indicated that they would give their vote to real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out between August 29 and September 7. The sample size was 775 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-3.5 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
Single polls should be interpreted with caution, since they often contain substantial errors. At least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following comparison, we translate the candidates' raw poll numbers into two-party vote shares. The resulting figures are 49.5% for Clinton and 50.6% for Trump. In the most recent Quinnipiac poll on August 7 Clinton obtained only 47.9%, while Trump obtained only 0.0%.
Results vs. other polls
Trump is currently at 50.6% of the two-party vote in an average of recent polls in Ohio. This value is 0 percentage points higher than her respective numbers in the Quinnipiac poll. This margin is within the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll compared with PollyVote's forecast
The most recent PollyVote forecasts Trump to gain 48.7% of the two-party vote in Ohio. Hence, the PollyVote is 1.9 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's margin of error.
