US polls 2016: Ohio results won’t necessarily determine national outcome

Beck explaining the trends in the battleground states to foreign journalists in Ohio.

OHIO: With just over 72 hours left in what has been an extremely heated election battle, the Democratic and Republican campaigns are focused entirely on a final push in the key battleground states.

Latest projections indicate about half a dozen battleground states that are currently too close to call - Ohio, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and North Carolina.

Over the coming days, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her Republican counterpart Donald Trump will be hitting the ground running in these crucial locations, which are seeing a somewhat unusual pattern compared to previous elections.

In the classic swing state of Ohio, where both candidates have scheduled events on Friday, the voting trends appear to have diverted from traditional norms.

Known as the bellweather state, Ohio’s results have been crucial in the past that typically determine the overall national outcome.

Except for twice in the last 120 years, the candidate who wins Ohio has won the presidency.

But that may not be the case this year, according to Ohio State University's (OSU) academy professor Paul Beck.

A graph showing how Ohio's demographics measure up to the national average and other selected battleground states.

A recent projection by CNN has Ohio in the “yellow” - a deadheat between Clinton and Trump - while other polls showed that it was leaning slightly towards the Republican candidate.

“Even if Trump wins Ohio, he could still easily lose the election. This is because Ohio is slightly ‘out of step’ with other battleground states,” Beck, a political science lecturer, told a group of foreign journalists covering the final stretch of the United States’ presidential elections, here.

Beck explained that Ohio was a good indicator as the composition of the state’s population was very similar to the national averages.

However, it had a much lower percentage of Hispanics and other minorities, who are less likely to vote for Trump.

The Republican nominee is not viewed too favourably by the Hispanic community after his comments on building a wall along the Mexico border to keep out undocumented immigrants. Trump has also accused them of being “rapists” and “bringing drugs and crime”.

“Ohio has a 3% Hispanic population while the national average is 17%.

"So in terms of Hispanics we are not really a good predictor of national results. The same goes for other minorities,” Beck said.

He described the 2016 presidential election as an odd one, where some previously “sure bet” states had switched to battleground status, again due to the Trump factor.

One such state is Utah, which was a classic safe state for Republicans because the majority of its population are Mormons.

“Mitt Romney (Republican candidate in 2012) was a Mormon, and a heavy majority of Mormons are Republicans.

"But Mormons have a very strong moral code and they very much feel that Trump violates that moral code,” he said.

The state could now very well sway towards Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin, who has been gaining steady ground in Utah and might deny Clinton and Trump some important electoral college votes.

The former Republican state of Arizona has also gradually switched to a battleground thanks to a growing number of Hispanic voters in the state.

“As numbers increase and they have turned up to vote, that state has become less Republican over time. There’s a very slight Trump advantage there,” Beck said.

Another unusual aspect of this election lies in the voting tendencies among white Americans.

Beck pointed out that the working class and college-educated middle-class whites had switched their candidate preferences in this election.

“Working class white Americans, who voted for Democrats in 2012, now prefer Trump while college-educated middle-class white Americans who voted for the Republicans in 2012 are more likely to vote for Clinton.

“This is especially obvious among women. There is a significant gender gap in this election, where men have a higher tendency of being Republicans and voting for Republicans, while women have a tendency to be Democrats and vote for Democrats,” he said.