Massachusetts: Clinton with whopping advantage in latest WBUR/MassINC poll
By WBUR/MassINC published the results of a new poll. In this poll, interviewees from Massachusetts were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
WBUR/MassINC poll results
Of those who answered the question, 60.0% said that they would vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, while 31.0% revealed that they would give their vote to businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from September 7 to September 10 with 506 likely voters. The sampling error is +/-4.4 percentage points, which means that the levels of voter support for both candidates differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls often contain large biases, which is why they should be treated with caution. At the very least, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, one can convert them into two-party vote shares. This procedure yields figures of 65.9% for Clinton and 34.1% for Trump.
Results in comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Massachusetts has Clinton at 61.7% of the two-party vote. This value is 4.3 percentage points lower than her respective numbers in the WBUR/MassINC poll. 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 most recent PollyVote expects Clinton to gain 63.1% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. Hence, Polly's combined forecast is 2.8 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore in line with the poll's margin of error.
