For the first time since October 3rd, swing-state Ohio has flipped back to slightly being in favor of presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to the latest aggregated polling data from FiveThirtyEight.com.
As of today, the difference between Trump and Hillary Clinton is negligible, with both candidates tied with a popular vote forecast of 46.8 percent in Ohio, which gives Trump a 0.2 percent higher change of winning our state’s coveted 18 electoral votes, according to FiveThirtyEight’s algorithm.
Since June, Ohio has spent more time being called for Clinton than Trump, with a couple of switches to Trump in late July and mid-September. Clinton has maintained a lead over Trump in Ohio throughout most October, as the latter has been condemned by his fellow Republicans including Ohio Governor John Kasich, and as Clinton has been endorsed by all major Ohio newspapers, including The Dispatch.
As the two candidates spend the final two weeks battling for Ohio (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both announced campaign stops in the state next week, while Trump was here just a few days ago), both will continue to work on damage control for negative stories in the media. Clinton is grappling with new revelations in the email server issue, and Trump continues to deal with more accusations of sexual assault.
Nationally, FiveThirtyEight is projecting that Clinton currently has an 81.5 percent likelihood of winning the election with 325 electoral votes and a 49.6 percent majority of the popular vote.
Election day is November 8th. To find out where and how to vote, visit vote.franklincountyohio.gov.