MPRC (D)MPRC (D) poll in Maine: Clinton with 5 points lead
Results of a new poll conducted by MPRC (D)MPRC (D) were circulated. The poll asked interviewees from Maine for whom they will vote: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
MPRC (D)MPRC (D) poll results
According to the results, 45.0% of respondents plan to give their vote to former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, while 40.0% intend to vote for businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from September 15 to September 17 among 835 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-3.4 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, you should not have too much faith in the results of single polls, as they sometimes contain large errors. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, we translate them into shares of the two-party vote. The respective figures are 52.9% for Clinton and 47.1% for Trump.
Results vs. other polls
Clinton currently runs at 53.1% of the two-party vote according to an average of recent polls in Maine. Relative to her numbers in the MPRC (D)MPRC (D) poll Clinton's poll average is 0.2 percentage points better. This difference is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll compared with PollyVote's forecast
The current PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 54.6% of the two-party vote in Maine. This means that the PollyVote forecast is 1.7 points above her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's error margin suggests that this deviation is negligible.