Colorado: 7 points lead for Clinton in latest Harper (R) poll
Results of a new poll conducted by Harper (R) were circulated on August 1. The poll asked interviewees from Colorado for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
Colorado is traditionally a purple state, where the GOP and the Democrats have historically gained similar levels of voter support. Hence, the election outcome in that state is considered important in determining the overall result of the presidential election.
Harper (R) poll results
Of those who answered the question, 45.0% said that they will vote for former First Lady Hillary Clinton, while 38.0% declared that they would give their vote to billionaire Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted from July 7 to July 9, among a random sample of 500 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-4.4 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
Single polls often include substantial errors, which is why they should be treated with caution. Instead of trusting the results from single polls, one should look at combined polls or, even better, the combined PollyVote forecast that relies on forecasts from different methods, each of which relies on different data.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, one can convert them into shares of the two-party vote. The corresponding figures are 54.2% for Clinton and 45.8% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
Looking at an average of Colorado polls, Clinton's current two-party vote share is at 54.9%. This value is 0.7 percentage points higher than her corresponding numbers in the Harper (R) poll. This deviation is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote prediction
The current PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 53.1% of the two-party vote in Colorado. This means that Polly's combined forecast is 1.1 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's error margin.