Monmouth*Monmouth* poll in Colorado: Clinton holds sizable lead
Results of a new poll administered by MonmouthMonmouth were announced on July 13. The poll asked respondents from Colorado for whom they would vote if the Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton and the Republican Party nominated Donald Trump.
Colorado is traditionally a battleground state, where the Democrats and the GOP have historically gained similar levels of support among voters. Therefore, the election outcome here is considered crucial in determining which party will win the majority of electoral votes.
MonmouthMonmouth poll results
According to the results, 48.0% of participants said that they would cast a ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 35.0% would vote for businessman Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted from July 9 to July 12, among a random sample of 404 likely voters. If one accounts for the poll's error margin of +/-4.9 percentage points, the gap in voter support is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, don't have too much faith in the results of single polls, as they often incorporate large errors. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, you can translate them into shares of the two-party vote. This procedure results in values of 57.8% for Clinton and 42.2% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Colorado sees Clinton at 54.3% of the two-party vote. Compared to her numbers in the MonmouthMonmouth poll Clinton's poll average is 3.5 percentage points lower. This margin is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's prediction
The current PollyVote predicts Clinton to gain 61.0% of the two-party vote in Colorado. That is, Polly's forecast is 3.2 points above her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus in line with the poll's margin of error.