Pennsylvania: 9 points lead for Clinton in latest Suffolk University poll
Results of a new poll carried out by Suffolk University were spread. The poll asked interviewees from Pennsylvania for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
Suffolk University poll results
According to the results, 50.0% of participants would cast a ballot for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 41.0% plan to vote for real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out from July 25 to July 27 with 500 likely voters. The margin of error is +/-4.4 percentage points, which means that the levels of voter support for Clinton and Trump do not differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls should be interpreted with caution, because they often include substantial errors. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, one can translate them into shares of the two-party vote. The corresponding figures are 45.1% for Clinton and 0.0% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Pennsylvania has Clinton at 44.9% of the two-party vote. This value is 0.2 percentage points lower than respective numbers in the Suffolk University poll. This deviation is within the poll's sampling error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's forecast
The current PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 45.5% of the two-party vote in Pennsylvania. This means that the PollyVote forecast is 0.4 points above polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's error margin suggests that this difference is insignificant.