Poll: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton still lead in three key swing states
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton still lead in the swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania with Clinton's support eroding a bit, according to a new Quinnipiac University survey.
In Florida, 28 percent of GOP voters say they would vote for Trump, up 5 percentage points from August. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson comes in second, with 16 percent. And only 12 percent of Florida Republicans would back their own former governor, Jeb Bush, for president.
Trump also leads among Republicans in Ohio with just under a quarter of the vote. Again, Carson comes in second place and the state's current governor, John Kasich, would receive 13 percent of the GOP primary vote.
Twenty-three percent of Republican voters in Pennsylvania said they would vote for Trump and 17 percent said they would support Carson. Marco Rubio comes in third.
Quinnipiac focused on these three states because no candidate since 1960 has won a presidential race without winning at least two of the three states.
As for Clinton, she would receive 43 percent support in Florida, 40 percent support in Ohio and her support has dropped from 45 percent to 36 percent in Pennsylvania.
While Trump and Clinton are leading in the 2016 presidential election in the three key swing states, they also receive the worst favorability and trustworthiness ratings.
If Vice President Joe Biden were to join the Democratic field -- a decision he's expected to make within days -- he would be the best general election candidate for Democrats, the poll found.
Similarly, the survey indicated Carson would be the best GOP candidate for the general election.
When Biden is factored into the Democratic race, he trails Clinton in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, and Bernie Sanders comes in third. Biden and Sanders would be tied at 19 percent in Florida.
Quinnipiac's last survey of the swing states in August found Biden would outperform Clinton in certain matchups against Trump.
From September 25 to October 5, Quinnipiac surveyed more than 1,000 voters in each of the three swing state with margins of error of about +/- 3 percent.