New WBUR/MassINC poll in Massachusetts: Trump trails by a overwhelming margin
By WBUR/MassINC released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Massachusetts were asked for whom they will vote: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
WBUR/MassINC poll results
Of those who replied, 60.0% said that they will vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while 31.0% declared that they would give their vote to real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from September 7 to September 10. A total of 506 likely voters responded. If one takes into account the poll's sampling error of +/-4.4 percentage points, the difference between both candidates is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. Thus, as a general rule, one should not focus too much on the results of a single poll. At the very least, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, we translate them into shares of the two-party vote. This procedure results in values of 65.9% for Clinton and 34.1% for Trump.
Results compared to other polls
An average of recent polls in Massachusetts has Clinton at 63.2% of the two-party vote. Relative to her numbers in the WBUR/MassINC poll Clinton's poll average is 2.7 percentage points lower. This deviation is within the poll's sampling error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The current PollyVote predicts Clinton to gain 63.9% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. Hence, Polly's combined forecast is 2.0 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's sampling error.
