Dead heat between Clinton and Trump in latest Reuters poll
By Reuters published the results of a new national poll. In this poll, interviewees were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Reuters poll results
The results show that 40.0% of respondents indicated that they would give their vote to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 38.0% are going to vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was in the field between September 1 and September 5. The sample size was 1084 participants. The error margin is +/-3.5 points. This means that the poll results for both candidates do not differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, don't have too much faith in the results of single polls, as they can incorporate large errors. Rather, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following analysis, we translate Trump's and Clinton's raw poll numbers into two-party vote shares. The corresponding figures are 51.3% for Clinton and 48.7% for Trump. On September 6 Clinton obtained only 50.6% in the Reuters poll and Trump obtained 49.4%.
Results in comparison to other polls
Clinton is currently at 52.2% of the two-party vote in an average of recent polls. This value is 0.9 percentage points higher than respective numbers in the Reuters poll. This margin is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The most recent PollyVote expects Clinton to gain 52.5% of the two-party vote. Hence, the PollyVote is 1.2 points above polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's sampling error.
