PPIC poll in California: Clinton holds sizable advantage
By PPIC released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from California were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
PPIC poll results
Of those who responded, 46.0% said that they plan to vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 30.0% said that they would give their vote to businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted between July 10 and July 19. The sample size was 1056 likely voters. The error margin is +/-4.3 points, which means that the poll results for the two candidates differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. In general, don't be too confident the results of an individual poll. Rather than relying on results from single polls, you should rely on combined polls or, even better, the combined PollyVote forecast that incorporates different methods and data.
In order to make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, one can translate them into two-party vote shares. This procedure results in values of 60.5% for Clinton and 39.5% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in California sees Clinton at 63.3% of the two-party vote. Relative to her numbers in the PPIC poll Clinton's poll average is 2.8 percentage points higher. This difference is within the poll's error margin, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The most recent PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 61.3% of the two-party vote in California. That is, the PollyVote forecast is 0.8 points above her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's margin of error indicates that this difference is insignificant.
