New WBUR/MassINC poll in Massachusetts: Clinton with whopping lead
By Results of a new poll administered by WBUR/MassINC were released. The poll asked participants from Massachusetts for whom they will vote: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
WBUR/MassINC poll results
The results show that 60.0% of interviewees are going to cast a ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while 31.0% would vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from September 7 to September 10. A total of 506 likely voters responded. The sampling error is +/-4.4 points, which means that the poll results for both parties' candidates differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls often incorporate large errors, and should be interpreted with caution. Rather than trusting the results from single polls, research in forecasting recommends to look at combined polls or, even better, the combined PollyVote forecast that incorporates forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, you can convert them into shares of the two-party vote. The corresponding figures are 65.9% for Clinton and 34.1% for Trump.
Results compared to other polls
Clinton is currently at 63.2% of the major two-party vote according to an average of recent polls in Massachusetts. This value is 2.7 percentage points lower than her respective numbers in the WBUR/MassINC poll. 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 most recent PollyVote expects Clinton to gain 63.9% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. This means that the PollyVote forecast is 2.0 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's sampling error.
