New Colby College/SurveyUSA poll in Maine: Trump and Clinton neck-and-neck
By On October 10, Colby College/SurveyUSA released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Maine were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Colby College/SurveyUSA poll results
Of those who responded, 42.0% said that they will vote for former First Lady Hillary Clinton, while 39.0% declared that they would give their vote to businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was in the field between September 4 and September 10. The sample size was 779 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-3.6 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. As a result, don't be too confident the results of a single poll. Instead of relying on results from single polls, the best practice scientific advice is to rely on combined polls or, even better, a combined forecast that relies on forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, you can convert them into two-party vote shares. This yields figures of 51.9% for Clinton and 48.2% for Trump.
Results in comparison to other polls
Looking at an average of Maine polls, Clinton's current two-party vote share is at 53.2%. In comparison to her numbers in the Colby College/SurveyUSA poll Clinton's poll average is 1.3 percentage points higher. This difference is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The most recent PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 54.6% of the two-party vote in Maine. That is, Polly's combined forecast is 2.7 points above her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore in line with the poll's margin of error.
