Clinton leads in California by 26 points in new LA Times/USC poll
By LA Times/USC 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.
LA Times/USC poll results
Of those who responded, 56.0% said that they will vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 30.0% declared that they would give their vote to real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from May 19 to May 31. A total of 1500 registered voters responded. Taking into account the poll's sampling error of +/-2.9 percentage points, the spread in voter support is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls should be treated with caution, because they can incorporate substantial biases. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following comparison, we convert Trump's and Clinton's raw poll numbers into shares of the two-party vote. The corresponding figures are 65.1% for Clinton and 34.9% for Trump. In the most recent LA Times/USC poll on September 9 Clinton received only 34.9%, while Trump received only 0.0%.
Results in comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in California sees Clinton at 63.4% of the two-party vote. In comparison to her numbers in the LA Times/USC poll Clinton's poll average is 1.8 percentage points worse. This margin is within the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The latest PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 61.3% of the two-party vote in California. This means that Polly's prediction is 3.8 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore outside the poll's error margin.
