Latest Monmouth poll in Pennsylvania: Trump trails by a healthy margin
By Monmouth released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Pennsylvania were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Monmouth poll results
Of those who answered the question, 48.0% said that they intend to vote for former First Lady Hillary Clinton, whereas 40.0% declared that they would give their vote to billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was in the field between August 26 and August 29. The sample size was 402 likely voters. The sampling error is +/-4.9 points, which means that the poll results for the Democratic and the Republican candidate do not differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls should be regarded with caution, because they often include substantial biases. Instead of relying on results from single polls, the recommended strategy look at combined polls or, even better, a combined forecast that includes different methods and data.
In order to make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, you can convert them into shares of the two-party vote. The respective figures are 54.6% for Clinton and 45.5% for Trump.
Results in comparison to other polls
Looking at an average of Pennsylvania polls, Clinton's current two-party vote share is at 54.2%. This value is 0.4 percentage points lower than her respective numbers in the Monmouth poll. 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 foresees Clinton to gain 54.2% of the two-party vote in Pennsylvania. This means that Polly's forecast is 0.4 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore in line with the poll's sampling error.
