Ohio: Dead heat between Clinton and Trump in latest Quinnipiac poll
By Results of a new poll carried out by Quinnipiac were spread. The poll asked interviewees from Ohio for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
Historically, Ohio has been a battleground state, in which neither the GOP nor the Democrats have had overwhelming support to clinch its electoral college votes. This is why predictions in this state are of particular value.
Quinnipiac poll results
Of those who replied, 46.0% said that they intend to vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while 49.0% said that they would give their vote to billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out from September 27 to October 2 with 497 likely voters. Considering the poll's margin of error of +/-4.4 percentage points, the results reflect a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, you should not have too much faith in the results of single polls, as they often incorporate large errors. Instead of relying on results from single polls, research in forecasting recommends to consult combined polls or, even better, the combined PollyVote forecast that incorporates forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, we translate them into two-party vote shares. The corresponding figures are 48.4% for Clinton and 51.6% for Trump. To compare: Only 47.9% was gained by Clinton in the Quinnipiac poll on August 7, for Trump this result was only 0.0%.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's forecast
The latest PollyVote predicts Trump to gain 49.1% of the two-party vote in Ohio. Hence, Polly's combined forecast is 2.5 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's margin of error.
