Maryland: 33 points lead for Clinton in new Goucher College*Goucher College* poll
By Goucher CollegeGoucher College released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Maryland were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Goucher CollegeGoucher College poll results
According to the results, 58.0% of interviewees are going to cast a ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 25.0% are going to vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from September 17 to September 20. A total of 514 likely voters responded. If one accounts for the poll's sampling error of +/-4.3 percentage points, the gap in voter support is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
Single polls should be regarded with caution, as they may incorporate substantial errors. Rather than relying on results from single polls, research in forecasting recommends to use combined polls or, even better, a combined forecast that relies on forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, one can translate them into two-party vote shares. This yields figures of 69.9% for Clinton and 30.1% for Trump.
Results vs. other polls
An average of recent polls in Maryland has Clinton at 69.4% of the two-party vote. In comparison to her numbers in the Goucher CollegeGoucher College poll Clinton's poll average is 0.5 percentage points lower. This deviation is within the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The latest PollyVote foresees Clinton to gain 64.4% of the two-party vote in Maryland. This means that Polly's combined forecast is 5.5 points below her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's margin of error indicates that this deviation is significant.
