A new poll shows Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has opened up a four-point lead in Ohio over Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The survey, conducted by Quinnipiac University and released today, shows Clinton with 49 percent of Ohio voters likely to vote in the November election compared to 45 percent for Trump.

Hillary Clinton has taken a narrow lead in the first public polls of Ohioans since the political parties' conventions.

The Democratic nominee is ahead of Donald Trump by 2 points in a new Quinnipiac University survey, while Clinton tops the GOP nominee by 4 points in a fresh NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll. Both sets of results presumed that Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein will qualify for the Ohio ballot.

In addition, Quinnipiac released surveys showing Clinton tied with Trump in Florida and leading by 9 percentage points in Pennsylvania.

NBC also shows Clinton ahead by 9 in Pennsylvania and the two deadlocked in Iowa.

The latest polls provide a glimpse into how difficult it will be for Trump to win the 270 electoral votes to become the next president. Even if Trump wins every state carried in 2012 by GOP nominee Mitt Romney � and Trump trails in some of those � he also needs to carry Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida to defeat Clinton.

In Ohio, Quinnipiac has Clinton at 44 percent and Trump at 42 percent, plus Johnson getting 8 percent and Stein 3 percent among likely voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Among registered voters, NBC has Ohio as 39 percent for Clinton, 35 percent for Trump, 12 percent for Johnson and 4 percent for Stein. The NBC/SurveyMonkey poll of 889 respondents from last Wednesday through Sunday has an error margin of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Although Ohio voters express strong dislike for both major presidential candidates, Clinton has opened her lead based on her strength among women. The Quinnipiac telephone survey of 812 likely voters between July 30 and Sunday shows that 54 percent of women plan to vote for the former secretary of state, while 39 percent will support Trump. By contrast, Trump has the edge among men, but by a smaller margin, 51 to 43 percent.

�Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both know to be president of the United States, the only way to get there is with women voters,� said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant in Boston. �That�s where the fight is going to be from now through November.�

But the poll shows a perilous path for both candidates in Ohio as 55 percent surveyed express a negative view of Clinton and 58 percent hold a negative view of Trump. Among those planning to vote for Trump, 61 percent say they are doing so because they do not like Clinton.

NBC also polled Ohioans about the state's U.S. Senate race and found Republican Sen. Rob Portman ahead of Democratic challenger Ted Strickland 48 percent to 43 percent. The two were tied at 44 percent last month.

Dispatch Public Affairs Editor Darrel Rowland and Jessica Wehrman of the Dispatch Washington bureau contributed to this story.

jtorry@dispatch.com

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