Florida: Narrow lead for Clinton in new Mason-Dixon*Mason-Dixon* poll
By Mason-DixonMason-Dixon published the results of a new poll. In this poll, respondents from Florida were asked for whom they would vote if Hillary Clinton were the Democratic Party's candidate and Donald Trump were the Republican Party's candidate.
Historically, Florida has been a swing state, in which neither the GOP nor the Democrats have had overwhelming support to secure its electoral college votes. Therefore, forecasts in this state are of particular value.
Of those who replied, 45.0% said that they plan to vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 42.0% revealed that they would give their vote to real estate developer Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted from May 31 to June 2, among a random sample of 625 likely voters. Given the poll's sampling error of +/-4.0 percentage points, the results reflect a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
In general, however, you should not have too much faith in the results of individual polls, as they can incorporate large errors. Rather, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To put the poll results on equal footing with benchmark forecasts, you can convert them into two-party vote shares. This yields figures of 51.7% for Clinton and 48.3% for Trump.
Results in comparison to polling averages
Clinton currently achieves 51.3% of the major two-party vote in the latest polling average in Florida. Compared to her numbers in the Mason-DixonMason-Dixon poll, Clinton's polling average is 0.4 percentage points lower. This deviation is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The latest PollyVote foresees Clinton to gain 52.0% of the two-party vote in Florida. Hence, Polly's prediction is 0.3 points above her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's error margin reveals that this difference is negligible.
