What to Expect at This Turning Point in the 2016 Race
The general election campaign is in full swing.
— -- The race for the White House is now in the final stretch as the candidates ramp up for the last nine weeks of the campaign.
This weekend, both campaigns spent time in Ohio -- one of the critical battleground states -- and their planes were even on the same tarmac and the same airport at the same time.
Their similar schedules comes from the race to win over undecideds as the campaign appears to be closer than ever.
Latest Numbers
The latest poll, released today by CNN/ORC, had Trump with 45 percent to Clinton's 43 percent. Since the margin of error is 3.5 percent, that means that the race is essentially even, though it is significant that Trump reached the 45 percent mark.
"Donald Trump has now blown through his cap," ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd said on "Good Morning America," referencing Trump's previous poll performance.
"He's at his personal best. If Hillary Clinton thought she could coast in the home stretch of this thing, she'd better tighten up her track shoes and buy a bigger box of cough drops and be prepared for a very very close race," he said referencing the coughing fit Clinton had during an event in Ohio this weekend.
The CNN poll was conducted from September 1 through September 4 and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson came in third with 7 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein had 2 percent. The cut off to be included in the debates is 15 percent.
Swing State Sessions
The focus on certain states -- like Ohio this past weekend -- is set to continue.
Since 2000, 40 states have voted for the same party in each presidential election, meaning that the remaining 10 have the potential to be game changers.
Ohio is one of the biggest states to watch, too, given their presidential track record. The last time the state's voters didn't pick the winner was in 1960. Beyond that, no Republican has ever won without winning Ohio.
Dowd said that while Clinton is leading in most of the battleground states at the moment, those results take a little longer to reflect the state of the race.
"One thing to keep in mind is that battleground states are lagging indicators of where this race is," Dowd said today. "As the race changes nationally, then the battleground states change. I would expect in the next week, many of those battleground states that are blue now are going to go purple."
Decision Days
While November 8 is the big day at the end of this lengthy race, there are four other dates that stand out on the campaign calendar -- those are the presidential debates.
Trump has finally said that he plans to attend all three presidential debates, which are scheduled for September 26, October 9, and October 19, making the schedule more set.
The vice presidential debate is scheduled for October 4.