Press Release: Ballotpedia Polls Battleground States
Contact: Kristen Mathews, Director of Editorial Communications
Tel: (608) 255-0688
E-mail: editor@ballotpedia.org
Clinton’s lead falls when polled against Speaker Paul Ryan and Gov. John Kasich
Madison - June 29, 2016: Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton leads Republican candidate Donald Trump 48 percent to 37 percent across seven battleground states. That lead disappears when Clinton is polled against former candidate Ohio Governor John Kasich, who leads Clinton 44 percent to 40 percent. Polls find Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) evenly split with Clinton, 42 percent to 42 percent.
While the latest nationwide polls have been clear on Clinton's large lead over Trump, Ballotpedia sought to find if this held true in the battleground states. If so, how would that lead change with either a high-ranking federal legislative figure or a well-known governor at the top of the Republican ticket?
Evolving Strategies and Ballotpedia polled voters in Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In all seven states, Hillary Clinton polled higher than Donald Trump. The tightest battleground race between the two frontrunners was in Iowa, where Clinton leads Trump by a weighted 4 percentage points. Clinton saw the largest lead in Michigan, where she leads Trump by a weighted 17 percentage points. Comparatively, John Kasich polls ahead of Clinton in five of the seven states, and Paul Ryan polls ahead of Clinton in three states.
The modeled results were predicted for the full voter file sample from each state with a machine-learning algorithm using the voter-file matched sample and a wide range of political and demographic variables, then weighted to expected turnout probability in a presidential election. These results demonstrated that Donald Trump would underperform Hillary Clinton by an average of 10 percentage points, versus John Kasich outperforming Clinton by 4 points and Paul Ryan outperforming her by 1 point. Using this model (below), Kasich would be predicted to win six of the seven states and would be even with Clinton in just North Carolina.
“Donald Trump performs much more consistently across most states than the other two Republicans, with his modeled vote share hovering in the mid-forties and only edging up slightly to the high forties in Iowa and Ohio.” says Adam Schaeffer of Evolving Strategies, Ballotpedia’s statistical expert and polling partner.
Florida Florida is one of only two states (the other being North Carolina) where all three Republicans poll worse than Hillary Clinton. Similarly, Clinton’s polling is the highest in Florida in each match-up.
Iowa In Iowa, the Libertarian Party nominee, Gary Johnson, sees his highest polling against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Johnson polls at 16 percent compared to Clinton’s 38 percent and Trump’s 36 percent.
Michigan An alternate candidate to Donald Trump overcomes the largest Clinton-Trump margin in Michigan. When compared head-to-head, Clinton defeats Trump by 17 points. However, in a one-on-one matchup, Kasich defeats Clinton by 1 point in polling. This is the largest margin where Clinton is ahead against Trump but trails Kasich or Ryan.
North Carolina Despite Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, carrying North Carolina by a slim margin in 2012 (2.2 percentage points), Hillary Clinton leads all three Republicans polled. However, in the predicted modeled head-to-head results, John Kasich is statistically even with Clinton, while Paul Ryan trails her by 2 percentage points and Trump is 10 full percentage points behind.
Ohio The spread between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as compared to John Kasich and Clinton is highest in Ohio. Trump polls at 37 percent compared to Clinton’s 46 percent. The figures are considerably reversed in a Kasich versus Clinton scenario. Kasich polls 49 percent to Clinton’s 35 percent.
Pennsylvania Although John Kasich won only 19.4 percent of the Pennsylvania Republican primary vote on April 26, 2016, he is the only Republican in the study who polls above Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Virginia While the survey results show Paul Ryan polling ahead of Hillary Clinton by a small margin (2 percentage points), the modeled survey has Ryan trailing Clinton by 2 points. While the race would be tight for both Ryan and John Kasich (who polled 5 percentage points ahead of Clinton), Donald Trump is 12 percentage points behind Clinton in the poll results.
Detailed information can be found at https://ballotpedia.org/Polling
“This cycle, we see both major parties running candidates who are unpopular with the general electorate. With this poll, we wanted to start quantifying what the electoral map could look like with the ‘Trump effect.’ While his populist appeal helped in the Republican primary, his 11 percentage point deficit average against Hillary Clinton means Donald Trump has a very steep hill to climb between now and November. Between his polling, fundraising reports, and recent media attention, will Trump have delegates feeling buyer’s remorse in Cleveland?” asks Sarah Rosier, Ballotpedia’s Federal Desk Editor.
Methodology
The poll was conducted by Evolving Strategies, a clinical data science firm. The poll was led by Adam Schaeffer, Ph.D., the founder and Chief Science Officer for Evolving Strategies.
The samples in each state were drawn from a list of all active registered voters. All respondents are confirmed as registered voters in their states. From June 10-22, live interviewers called land lines and cell phones across seven states to survey:
- 596 Florida voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points;
- 601 Iowa voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points;
- 612 Michigan voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points;
- 603 North Carolina voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points;
- 617 Ohio voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percentage points;
- 601 Pennsylvania voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points; and
- 612 Virginia voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percentage points.
The results were weighted to approximate major demographic targets based on Census data for each state. The modeled results were predicted using the voter-file matched sample using a wide range of political and demographic variables and weighted for expected turnout probability in a presidential election. Interviews were conducted by Opinion Access Corporation of Long Island City, New York.
About Ballotpedia
Ballotpedia.org is an encyclopedia of American politics. Ballotpedia delivers exceptionally high quality and easy-to-access information. Headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, Ballotpedia was founded in 2006. It has grown to include approximately 215,000 staff-authored encyclopedic articles that have garnered over 483 million page views.
If you’d like more information, or to schedule an interview, please contact Kristen Mathews at editor@ballotpedia.org.
