By Laura A. Bischoff, Dayton Daily News
COLUMBUS – The presidential race in Ohio remains a volatile contest that could break either way depending on how undecided voters and those supporting third-party candidates make their final decisions, a new survey shows.
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Democrat Hillary Clinton leads by 3 percentage points over Republican Donald Trump in the poll, which the University of Akron conducted for this and other Ohio news organizations.
Clinton’s lead is hardly safe: More than one in five Ohio voters — 21 percent — say they are undecided or plan to vote for either Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The outcome in Ohio hinges largely on how those voters make their final decisions.
The poll included more than 1,000 interviews conducted between Sept. 21 and Oct. 13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. In the poll — the third the consortium has done measuring Ohioans’ attitudes on a variety of topics, including negative ads and voter frustration — Clinton has 41 percent of likely voters in Ohio followed by Trump with 38 percent, Johnson with 6 percent and Stein with 1 percent.
“The third debate is important to both candidates because it is the last time to influence a large number of voters directly,” said John Green, director of the Bliss C. Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. “Because Trump is running behind in many states, it is especially important for him to make a good impression.”
The poll shows the Ohio electorate has been anything but static during these final weeks before the election.
Because the poll was conducted over three weeks and encompassed three debates and major developments in the campaigns, it reflects opinions over time rather than at any given moment, as in traditional horse-race polls. However, over those weeks, fluctuations were evident for Trump, who lost ground after both of his debate performances. Both Ohio and national polling showed Trump numbers taking a dive after his second debate and the Access Hollywood videotape that caught him boasting about sexual assault and the allegations from a number of women who say he kissed or groped them without their permission —allegations he has denied.
Only after his vice presidential running-mate Mike Pence delivered a strong debate performance was there a rebound for Trump.
Poll respondents interviewed about the debates say they’ve had an impact, but also highlighted some of their frustrations about the tone taken by the two campaigns.
“I think she took it seriously. He didn’t,” Vincent Chandler, a truck driver from Akron said about the debate performance of the two candidates.”It just felt like a show to me. It felt more like a reality TV show than an actual policy debate. And I think a lot of people are more interested in policy than old scandals and everything else that comes up.”
Linda Hampton, 56, a legal secretary in the Columbus area, agreed. “The campaign has been far too negative, far too personal,” she said.
Although Hampton said she plans to vote for Clinton, she isn’t happy about the way either campaign has been conducted. “I think it goes the same for Hillary, unfortunately, because neither are explaining enough about how they will make these things happen,” she said. “They are spending too much time attacking each others’ character.”
Green said the perceived weaknesses of the candidates is a big factor in the closeness of the race: 55.1 percent view Clinton in somewhat or very unfavorable terms, while 61 percent view Trump that way, according to the poll.
This much is clear: Clinton supporters can’t stand Trump and Trump supporters can’t stand Clinton. A little more than 95 percent of Trump supporters hold an unfavorable view of Clinton. A little more than 94 percent of Clinton voters have an unfavorable view of Trump, according to the poll.
Doug Livingston of the Akron Beacon Journal, Nadia Pflaum of WEWS, Tom Troy of The (Toledo) Blade contributed to this report.