Six months out from Election Day, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are running neck and neck in the three key swing states of Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, according to polling released today by Quinnipiac University.
The results found that races in Pennsylvania and Florida were locked in a dead heat, while Trump narrowly edged ahead of Clinton in Ohio. Voters in all three states were deeply divided along lines of age, gender, and race.
The poll revealed a clear age gap in which young voters (ages 18-34) preferred Clinton, while voters 65 and up preferred Trump.
The age gap was widest in Florida, where 49 percent of young voters supported Clinton and just 27 percent supported Trump. Older Florida voters supported Trump by 50 percent, compared to 37 percent who supported Clinton.
Overall, Clinton held a strong lead among millennials, women, and minorities, while Trump led with older people, men, and white voters.
Despite these differences, the poll found several common themes among voters from all three states.
The majority of voters agreed Trump would do a better job handling the economy and terrorism, and said he would be a stronger leader, while they said that Clinton was more intelligent, had a better temperament, and had slightly higher moral standards.
In all three states Bernie Sanders performed better against Trump than Clinton did, and was seen more favorably than the Democratic front-runner.
However, all of these variables have simply tightened the race between Trump and Clinton in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
“At this juncture, Trump is doing better in Pennsylvania than the GOP nominees in 2008 and 2012,” said the poll’s assistant director Peter Brown. “And the two candidates are about where their party predecessors were at this point in Ohio and Florida.”
The polling directors also noted that since 1960 no candidate has won the presidential race without taking at least two of these three states.
