Quinnipiac poll in North Carolina: Clinton with 4 points lead
Quinnipiac published the results of a new poll. In this poll, respondents from North Carolina were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
Quinnipiac poll results
The results show that 47.0% of respondents would vote for former First Lady Hillary Clinton, whereas 43.0% would vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was in the field between August 29 and September 7. The sample size was 751 likely voters. Considering the poll's error margin of +/-3.6 percentage points, the results reflect a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. As a result, don't be overly confident the results of an individual poll. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following comparison, we convert Clinton's and Trump's raw poll numbers into two-party vote shares. This procedure results in values of 52.2% for Clinton and 47.8% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
Looking at an average of North Carolina polls, Clinton's current two-party vote share is at 50.0%. In comparison to her numbers in the Quinnipiac poll Clinton's poll average is 2.2 percentage points lower. This difference is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote prediction
The latest PollyVote expects Clinton to gain 50.2% of the two-party vote in North Carolina. Hence, the combined PollyVote is 2.0 points below her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's margin of error shows that this difference is insignificant.