New Emerson poll in Pennsylvania: Trump and Clinton in a tossup
By Emerson published the results of a new poll. In this poll, respondents from Pennsylvania were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Emerson poll results
According to the results, 46.0% of interviewees plan to cast a ballot for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 43.0% would vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted between August 25 and August 28. The sample size was 800 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-3.4 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. As a result, one should not have too much confidence in the results of an individual poll. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, we translate them into shares of the two-party vote. This yields figures of 51.7% for Clinton and 48.3% for Trump.
Results in comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Pennsylvania sees Clinton at 53.8% of the two-party vote. This value is 2.1 percentage points higher than her respective numbers in the Emerson poll. This difference is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's forecast
The current PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 54.1% of the two-party vote in Pennsylvania. Hence, Polly's prediction is 2.4 points above her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's error margin indicates that this difference is negligible.
