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Data: SurveyMonkey survey of 3,092 Ohio voters, Sept. 1-25, 2020; Note: COVID-19 was a write-in option; Chart: Axios Visuals

President Trump leads Joe Biden 51%-47% among likely Ohio voters overall — but he holds a whopping 74%-24% lead with those who say a flagging economy and job concerns are their top issue, according to new SurveyMonkey-Tableau data for Axios.

Why it matters: Ohioans are more worried about their jobs than the coronavirus — and that's President Trump's best chance to cling to a narrow lead in this state he won handily in 2016.

Driving the news: Trump and Biden will meet Tuesday night in Cleveland for their first presidential debate, putting a spotlight on this Rust Belt state that's battled declining growth for years.

  • Ohio has 18 electoral votes, making it a state without which he likely cannot win.
  • 49% of all Ohio adults surveyed since June approve of Trump's handling of the presidency, five points higher than the national average.

Details: Jobs and the economy (37%) were the top issue for Ohio voters in September, followed by health care (18%), the environment (9%) and education (5%). Another 3% wrote in COVID-19.

  • Half of Ohioans see coronavirus primarily an economic crisis. Nationally, by contrast, 53% see it first as health crisis and 45% see it as an economic crisis, according to SurveyMonkey chief research officer Jon Cohen.

By the numbers: Non-college educated white voters and white men drive the president's Ohio support, nearly 2-to-1 over Biden, in the SurveyMonkey data.

  • Biden leads with Black, college-educated, young and independent voters — his best chances to close the gap if he can turn these groups out.
  • Black voters prefer Biden over Trump 86% to 12%.
  • College-educated white voters prefer Biden 59% to 40%.
  • Independents give Biden an edge 53% to 43%.
  • Women in Ohio are essentially divided.

Methodology:These data come from a set of SurveyMonkey online polls conducted for Axios and Tableau June 8 – September 25, 2020, among a national sample of 11,616 registered voters in Ohio, including 3,092 likely voters interviewed thus far in September.

  • Respondents were selected from the more than 2 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 2.5% percentage points.
  • Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States age 18 and over.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.