Massachusetts: Sizable lead for Clinton in new Emerson poll
By On October 10, Emerson released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Massachusetts were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Emerson poll results
According to the results, 50.0% of interviewees will give their vote to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 33.0% intend to vote for real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out from September 3 to September 5 among 500 likely voters. The error margin is +/-4.3 percentage points. This means that the poll results for the Republican and the Democratic candidate differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Single polls can incorporate large biases, which is why they should be treated with caution. At least, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, one can translate them into shares of the two-party vote. The resulting figures are 60.2% for Clinton and 39.8% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Massachusetts has Clinton at 63.5% of the two-party vote. This value is 3.3 percentage points higher than her respective numbers in the Emerson 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 latest PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 63.9% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. That is, the PollyVote is 3.7 points above her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's sampling error reveals that this deviation is insignificant.
