Former President Trump has a 6-point lead over Vice President Harris in the state of Ohio, a new Washington Post poll finds.
Trump won the Buckeye State by a similar margin in 2020, defeating President Biden by 8 points in that election.
Ohio was once a pivotal swing state, but it has shifted into GOP territory in the Trump era. Trump also won Ohio in the 2016 presidential election.
The state is also home to an important Senate race in this cycle.
The poll found Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and GOP opponent Bernie Moreno running roughly neck and neck, with Brown up by a single point. The polling average from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ shows Brown up by less than 2 points.
Democrats would have little chance of retaining their Senate majority without a victory by Brown. Even if Brown does win, Democrats likely need Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to win his race, and Tester as been behind GOP challenger Tim Sheehy in recent polls.
Ohio has been ground zero for the controversy surrounding inaccurate statements pushed by Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), about Haitian migrants in the town of Springfield abducting and eating pets.
The poll found that most voters do not believe the false claims about the pets, but that a sizeable minority, 24 percent, believed the statements were ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ true.
Trump and Vance have come under significant criticism for giving air to the stories, with GOP officials including Gov. Mike DeWine stating publicly that there is no truth to the reports.
The Post poll also showed that nearly half of Ohio voters had read or heard “a lot” about the city’s Haitian immigrant community nearly one month after the initial comments. Additionally, about 42 percent of polled Ohio voters say that Haitian immigrants are worsening their communities, compared to the 32 percent who said they improve them and the 16 percent who said they made no difference.
Moreno, like many other GOP candidates, has emphasized immigration-based messages in his Senate race, with the Post poll showing 43 percent of registered voters saying he would do a better job handling the issue compared to his Democratic opponent.
