LA Times poll: Clinton behind by 5 points
By LA Times released the results of a new national poll, in which respondents were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump.
LA Times poll results
According to the results, 42.0% of participants will cast a ballot for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, while 47.0% are going to vote for businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out from September 13 to September 19 with 2524 participants. The error margin is +/-4.5 points, which means that the poll results for both candidates do not differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Single polls should be treated with caution, since they can incorporate large errors. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following comparison, we translate Trump's and Clinton's raw poll numbers into shares of the two-party vote. This procedure results in figures of 47.2% for Clinton and 52.8% for Trump. In the most recent LA Times poll on September 17 Clinton obtained only 46.1%, while Trump obtained 53.9%.
Results in comparison to other polls
Trump is currently at 48.8% of the major two-party vote according to an average of recent polls. This value is 4 percentage points lower than respective numbers in the LA Times poll. This deviation is within the poll's margin of error, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's prediction
The most recent PollyVote anticipates Trump to gain 47.2% of the two-party vote. This means that Polly's combined forecast is 5.6 points below polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore outside the poll's margin of error.
