Poll: Hillary Clinton narrowly leads Donald Trump in key battleground state Ohio
Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 2 percentage points in the key battleground state of Ohio, according to a Monmouth University survey released Wednesday.
The poll found 44 percent of Ohio’s likely voters support Clinton while 42 percent support Trump. Five percent said they support Libertarian Gary Johnson, 1 percent said they support Green Party candidate Jill Stein and 6 percent remain undecided in the state.
In mid-August, a few weeks after the Democratic National Convention, Clinton had a 4-percentage-point-lead over Trump.
The latest poll found that Clinton is not performing as well with black, Asian and Hispanic voters in Ohio as President Obama did in 2012, and Trump is not doing as well as Mitt Romney did with white voters that year.
Thirty-five percent of voters said they view Clinton favorably and 30 percent said the same about Trump. A majority, 59 percent, said Clinton has the right temperament to serve as commander in chief and a third said the same about Trump.
As for the state’s Senate race, incumbent GOP Sen. Rob Portman leads his Democratic challenger former Gov. Ted Strickland by 15 percentage points -- 54 percent to 39 percent. Portman previously led Strickland by 8 percentage points.
The poll comes after Clinton campaign officials have said it’s not essential for the Democratic presidential nominee to win Ohio in order to win the White House. Ohio allots 18 Electoral College votes. President Obama won the state in both 2008 and 2012.
The poll surveyed 405 Ohio residents between Oct. 1 and 4 with a 4.9 percentage point margin of error.
