Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump neck and neck in three key swing states
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are running neck and neck in the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday.
In Florida, the poll found Clinton edges Trump 43 to 42 percent while longshot Democratic contender Bernie Sanders would have a similar edge of 44 to 42 percent against Trump. Clinton needs to win 14 percent of the remaining delegates to win the Democratic nomination, which she is on track to clinch in early June.
The poll found in Ohio, which hosts the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this July, Trump would defeat Clinton 43 to 39 percent. Sanders, however, would beat Trump 43 to 41 percent. No Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio. In March, John Kasich, the state's governor, won the Ohio Republican primary with 47 percent support and Trump came in second place with 36 percent support.
Clinton would have a slight edge of 43 to 42 percent in Pennsylvania in the general election and Sanders would beat Trump 47 to 41 percent.
In March, Clinton won the Democratic primaries in all three states. Trump won Florida's and Pennsylvania's GOP primaries.
In all three battleground states, Clinton leads among women while more men back Trump, the poll found. Independents in Florida are divided between the two contenders while more independents support Trump in Ohio. More white voters lean Republican in all three states while non-white voters overwhelmingly go Democratic.
In Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, a majority of their voters said undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. while between a quarter and a third said they should be required to leave the country. About 10 to 11 percent said they could stay in the U.S., but should not have the option of applying for citizenship.
Voters were split in Florida over whether the U.S. should move forward with Trump's proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. But in Ohio and Pennsylvania, more voters said they are opposed to such a plan.
More voters in all three states said Trump would do a better job handling the economy and terrorism but a majority in all three states said Clinton is more intelligent and has the temperament to handle an international crisis.
This comes just about a week after Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee and the same day that voters in West Virginia head to the polls to vote in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Nebraska will be holding a GOP primary as well.
The survey polled just over 1,000 voters in each state between April 27 and May 8 with a 3 percentage point margin of error for each state.