New Western NE University poll in Massachusetts: Clinton holds huge lead
Western NE University released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Massachusetts were asked for whom they will vote: Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Western NE University poll results
Of those who replied, 65.0% said that they plan to vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, while 30.0% indicated that they would give their vote to billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out from September 24 to October 3 among 403 likely voters. If one accounts for the poll's margin of error of +/-5.0 percentage points, the spread in voter support is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls may contain large errors, and should be interpreted with caution. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following analysis, we translate Clinton's and Trump's raw poll numbers into two-party vote shares. This procedure yields figures of 68.4% for Clinton and 31.6% for Trump.
Results in comparison to other polls
Clinton currently runs at 63.5% of the two-party vote according to an average of recent polls in Massachusetts. This value is 4.9 percentage points lower than her respective numbers in the Western NE University poll. This margin is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The current PollyVote foresees Clinton to gain 63.9% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. That is, the combined PollyVote is 4.5 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus in line with the poll's margin of error.