Nevada: Clinton tied with Trump in latest Emerson poll
By On October 10, Emerson released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Nevada were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
In Nevada, the election outcome is often decided by a narrow margin. This is the reason why the state is commonly considered a swing state, which makes it particularly interesting from a forecasting perspective.
Emerson poll results
According to the results, both candidates can draw on identical levels of support, each with 43.0% of the vote.
The poll was conducted from October 2 to October 4. A total of 700 likely voters responded. The sampling error is +/-3.6 points, which means that the levels of voter support for Clinton and Trump do not differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls can contain large errors, which is why they should be treated with caution. At least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, one can translate them into shares of the two-party vote. The results of the actual poll mean 50.0 % for Clinton and 50.0 % for Trump concerning the two-party vote share.
Results vs. other polls
If we look at an average of Nevada polls, Clinton's two-party vote share is currently at 50.7%. In comparison to the average forecast of other polls Clinton performed 0.7 percentage points worse in the poll. This margin is outside the poll's margin of error, which means that the poll is an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The most recent PollyVote predicts Clinton to gain 51.1% and Trump 48.9% of the two-party vote in Nevada. Clinton has 1.1 percentage points less when the results of the poll are compared to the combined PollyVote forecast for Nevada. The PollyVote forecast is therefore outside the poll's sampling error.
