New Boston Globe/SurveyUSA poll in Maine: Clinton and Trump in a virtual tie
By Boston Globe/SurveyUSA released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Maine were asked for whom they will vote: Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Boston Globe/SurveyUSA poll results
Of those who answered the question, 42.0% said that they will vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 39.0% declared that they would give their vote to billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted between September 4 and September 10. The sample size was 779 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-3.6 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls should be interpreted with caution, since they can contain substantial biases. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following analysis, we convert the candidates' raw poll numbers into shares of the two-party vote. The respective figures are 51.9% for Clinton and 48.2% for Trump.
Results vs. other polls
If we look at an average of Maine polls, Clinton's current two-party vote share is at 54.6%. Relative to her numbers in the Boston Globe/SurveyUSA poll Clinton's poll average is 2.7 percentage points higher. This difference is within the poll's margin of error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The most recent PollyVote expects Clinton to gain 55.3% of the two-party vote in Maine. That is, the PollyVote forecast is 3.4 points above her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's margin of error shows that this difference is insignificant.
