Crazy race for president drags on

COLUMBUS

Take a deep breath and gird your loins, because this presidential election could get a whole lot crazier in the closing days of what has already been an over-the-top-crazy campaign.

Yes, the debates are done, but there likely will be more than enough remaining vitriol to maintain heated dinner-table and church- pew discussions through Election Day.

The numbers don’t seem to add up for Republican nominee Donald Trump, if you consider the polling and the simulated Electoral College maps. Though Trump continues to draw massive crowds for his rallies, meaning the actual results could be a lot closer than the conventional analysis suggests.

That’s more than evident here in Ohio, the center of it all. In the past week and a half, I’ve covered Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, her husband (and former President) Bill Clinton, current President Barack Obama, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine and Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence.

Trump attracted supporters packing a suburban Columbus fairgrounds building a few days ago and many others standing outside to listen.

The latest Ohio-specific Quinnipiac University Poll had Trump and Clinton tied in Ohio. And it’s probably safe to gauge how close Ohio is by the number of times these folks frequent the state during the fewer than 20 days that remain in the campaign.

So buckle in, prepare to be mad, cast your ballot, and let’s get this over with, because folks planning to run for president four years from now are already lining up and preparing to launch their 2020 campaigns.

MORE POLL NUMBERS

A few more tidbits from those Quinnipiac Polls that came out between the second and third presidential debates:

A little more than half of likely Ohio voters (51 percent) said they were more motivated to vote in this year’s presidential election, versus 15 percent who said less motivated and 31 percent who said “about the same.”

In a national poll released later in the week, more than half (55 percent) of likely voters said they thought the news media are biased against Trump. That compares to 42 percent who said they’re not biased.

Fifty-nine percent of voters nationally don’t think Trump has a “sense of decency,” versus 36 percent who think he does.

Fifty-five percent said Clinton had a sense of decency, versus 42 percent who said she didn’t.

National voters were split on whether Clinton was fit to be president, with 47 percent saying yes and 49 percent saying no.

Fifty-eight percent said Trump isn’t fit to be president, versus 38 percent who said he is.

Fifty-one percent of voters nationally believed Trump groped or made inappropriate advances toward women. Thirty-one percent think the opposite, while 19 percent said they didn’t know.

Voters were somewhat split on whether such allegations that Trump were a deal breaker in the election.

Twenty-eight percent said the allegations were a deal breaker, 34 percent said they were a big deal but not a deal breaker, and 33 percent said they weren’t a big deal.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.