Pennsylvania: Steady advantage for Clinton in Quinnipiac poll
By Quinnipiac published the results of a new poll. In this poll, respondents from Pennsylvania were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
Quinnipiac poll results
The results show that 52.0% of respondents plan to cast a ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 42.0% would vote for real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out from July 30 to August 7 among 815 likely voters. The sampling error is +/-3.4 points. This means that the poll results for the candidates of both parties differ significantly.
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 put too much trust in the results of a single poll. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following comparison, we convert the candidates' raw poll numbers into shares of the two-party vote. The resulting figures are 55.3% for Clinton and 44.7% for Trump.
Results compared to other polls
An average of recent polls in Pennsylvania has Clinton at 55.1% of the two-party vote. In comparison to her numbers in the Quinnipiac poll Clinton's poll average is 0.2 percentage points lower. 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 latest PollyVote predicts Clinton to gain 54.6% of the two-party vote in Pennsylvania. That is, Polly's prediction is 0.7 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's margin of error.
