Clinton and Trump virtually tied in latest CNN poll
By Results of a new national poll carried out by CNN were announced. The poll asked respondents for whom they will vote: Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump.
CNN poll results
The results show that 48.0% of respondents will give their vote to former First Lady Hillary Clinton, while 49.0% plan to vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted via phone from September 1 to September 4 among 786 likely voters. Given the poll's error margin of +/-3.5 percentage points, the results reflect a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, a good strategy is to not have too much faith in the results of single polls, because they may contain large errors. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, one can convert them into two-party vote shares. This yields figures of 49.5% for Clinton and 50.5% for Trump. In the latest CNN poll on September 6 Clinton received 50.5%, while Trump received only 49.5%.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls sees Trump at 46.6% of the two-party vote. This value is 3.9 percentage points lower than respective numbers in the CNN poll. This difference is outside the poll's margin of error, which suggests that the poll is an outlier.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's prediction
The current PollyVote anticipates Trump to gain 47.4% of the two-party vote. This means that the combined PollyVote is 3.1 points below polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's error margin.
