The race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is tied at 43 percent in Ohio, according to a new poll of likely voters from Emerson College.
Libertarian Gary Johnson polled at 10 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein polled at 2 percent.
Ohio, a swing state with 18 electoral votes, has in recent years been a battleground state and a good predictor of the election winner. The state voted for Obama in 2012 and 2008, and for Bush in 2004 and 2000.
Conducted Aug. 25-27, the poll surveyed 800 likely general election voters using an automated, landline-only phone survey. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.4 percent.
TPM’s PollTracker Average for Ohio shows Clinton leading Trump by 2.1 points, 42.8 percent to his 40.7 percent. Both candidates have unfavorable ratings over 50 percent.
Although the race is within the margin of error, Ohio voters surveyed said they expect Clinton to win the presidency: 54 percent of respondents believe Clinton will win, and 35 percent expect Trump to win.
54% of respondents thought Clinton was going to win vs. 35% for Trump. That’s far more predictive at this point because it shows that people are projecting how they will vote. Many moderate Republicans have mixed feelings about supporting Clinton, but they know they can’t support Trump. In the end, they’ll do the right thing even if they really don’t want to.
Will we forever curse the name of Johnson and Stein as we now curse the name of Nader?
Many, many more registered Democrats voted for Bush than Nader. Democrats have never owned up to Gore’s weakness as a candidate. Those weaknesses included, unfairly, the press’s glee at belittling him. It’s a similar case with Clinton. It’s not fair, but it’s the truth of the situation. Hate Nader all you want, but he didn’t cost Gore the election. Hilary might be the best candidate for the job, but she is far from the best candidate for the campaign.
What’s round on the edges and high in the middle?
The press belittles Clinton for two reasons. One they want to look “fair and balanced.” Possibly more important, they want a photo finish horse race, not a blowout.