Suffolk University poll in Pennsylvania: Trump behind by 9 points
By Suffolk University released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Pennsylvania were asked for whom they will vote: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
Suffolk University poll results
According to the results, 50.0% of respondents would give their vote to former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 41.0% plan to vote for businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was in the field between July 25 and July 27. The sample size was 500 likely voters. Considering the poll's margin of error of +/-4.4 percentage points, the difference between both candidates is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. Thus, as a general rule, a good strategy is to not focus too much on the results of a single poll. Instead of trusting the results from single polls, the best practice scientific advice is to rely on combined polls or, even better, the combined PollyVote forecast that draws upon forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
For the following comparison, we translate the candidates' raw poll numbers into two-party vote shares. The respective figures are 55.0% for Clinton and 45.1% for Trump. In the most recent Suffolk University poll on August 20 Clinton received only 45.1%, while Trump received only 0.0%.
Comparison to other polls
If we look at an average of Pennsylvania polls, Clinton's two-party vote share is currently at 55.2%. Relative to her numbers in the Suffolk University poll Clinton's poll average is 0.2 percentage points better. This deviation is within the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The most recent PollyVote expects Clinton to gain 54.6% of the two-party vote in Pennsylvania. This means that the PollyVote forecast is 0.4 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus within the poll's margin of error.
