New Press Herald/UNH*Press Herald/UNH* poll in Maine: Clinton and Trump neck-and-neck
By Results of a new poll carried out by Press Herald/UNHPress Herald/UNH were distributed. The poll asked interviewees from Maine for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
Press Herald/UNHPress Herald/UNH poll results
The results show that 40.0% of interviewees will vote for former First Lady Hillary Clinton, while 37.0% are going to vote for businessman Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted from September 15 to September 20, among a random sample of 513 likely voters. The sampling error is +/-4.0 points, which means that the poll results for both parties' candidates do not differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, you should not have too much faith in the results of single polls, because they may contain large errors. Rather, one should check 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 resulting figures are 52.0% for Clinton and 48.1% for Trump.
Results in comparison to other polls
Looking at an average of Maine polls, Clinton's two-party vote share is currently at 53.2%. Relative to her numbers in the Press Herald/UNHPress Herald/UNH poll Clinton's poll average is 1.2 percentage points better. This margin is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll compared with PollyVote's prediction
The current PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 54.6% of the two-party vote in Maine. This means that the PollyVote forecast is 2.6 points above her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's error margin reveals that this deviation is insignificant.
