Massachusetts: New WBUR/MassINC poll has Trump behind by 29 points
By Results of a new poll administered by WBUR/MassINC were spread. The poll asked interviewees from Massachusetts for whom they will vote: Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton.
WBUR/MassINC poll results
Of those who replied, 60.0% said that they plan to vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 31.0% declared that they would give their vote to businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out between September 7 and September 10. The sample size was 506 likely voters. Given the poll's error margin of +/-4.4 percentage points, the spread 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 rely too much on the results of a single poll. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, you can translate them into two-party vote shares. The respective figures are 65.9% for Clinton and 34.1% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
Clinton currently runs at 63.5% of the two-party vote in an average of recent polls in Massachusetts. This value is 2.4 percentage points lower than her corresponding numbers in the WBUR/MassINC 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 most recent PollyVote predicts Clinton to gain 63.9% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. Hence, the PollyVote forecast is 2.0 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus in line with the poll's error margin.
