Clinton leads in Pennsylvania by 12 points in latest Franklin & Marshall poll
By Franklin & Marshall released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Pennsylvania were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
Franklin & Marshall poll results
Of those who responded, 48.0% said that they intend to vote for former First Lady Hillary Clinton, whereas 36.0% indicated that they would give their vote to real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from September 28 to October 2 among 813 registered voters. There is a sampling error of +/-4.8 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the gap between both candidates is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
In general, however, you should not have too much faith in the results of single polls, because they can incorporate large errors. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, one can translate them into shares of the two-party vote. The corresponding figures are 57.1% for Clinton and 42.9% for Trump. On August 29 Clinton received only 46.0% in the Franklin & Marshall poll and Trump received only 0.0%.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Pennsylvania has Clinton at 55.3% of the two-party vote. Compared to her numbers in the Franklin & Marshall poll Clinton's poll average is 1.8 percentage points lower. This margin is within the poll's error margin, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's prediction
The current PollyVote expects Clinton to gain 53.6% of the two-party vote in Pennsylvania. That is, Polly's prediction is 3.5 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's margin of error.
