Latest Reuters poll: Clinton and Trump neck-and-neck
By Reuters released the results of a new national poll, in which respondents 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 participants intend to cast a ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 38.0% would vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted between September 1 and September 5. The sample size was 1084 participants. Considering the poll's error margin of +/-3.5 percentage points, the results reflect a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. As a result, don't focus too much on the results of a single poll. At least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following analysis, we translate Clinton's and Trump's raw poll numbers into two-party vote shares. This yields figures of 51.3% for Clinton and 48.7% for Trump.
Results vs. other polls
An average of recent polls sees Clinton at 52.1% of the two-party vote. In comparison to numbers in the Reuters poll Clinton's poll average is 0.8 percentage points higher. This difference is within the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The current PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 52.5% of the two-party vote. That is, Polly's combined forecast is 1.2 points above polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus in line with the poll's sampling error.
