California: Clinton holds huge advantage in latest LA Times/USC poll
By LA Times/USC published the results of a new poll. In this poll, participants from California were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
LA Times/USC poll results
According to the results, 56.0% of participants will cast a ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while 30.0% will cast a ballot for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was in the field between May 19 and May 31. The sample size was 1500 registered voters. The margin of error is +/-2.9 percentage points, which means that the levels of voter support for Trump and Clinton differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Single polls can incorporate substantial biases, which is why they should be treated with caution. Rather than relying on results from single polls, forecasting research recommends to rely on combined polls or, even better, the combined PollyVote forecast that draws upon forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
For the following comparison, we convert Trump's and Clinton's raw poll numbers into shares of the two-party vote. The resulting figures are 65.1% for Clinton and 34.9% for Trump. On September 8 Clinton received only 34.9% in the LA Times/USC poll and Trump received only 0.0%.
Results in comparison to other polls
Clinton is currently at 63.4% of the major two-party vote according to an average of recent polls in California. In comparison to her numbers in the LA Times/USC poll Clinton's poll average is 1.8 percentage points lower. This difference is within the poll's sampling error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's prediction
The latest PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 61.3% of the two-party vote in California. Hence, Polly's forecast is 3.8 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore outside the poll's sampling error.
