Goucher College*Goucher College* poll in Maryland: Clinton with 33 points lead
By Results of a new poll carried out by Goucher CollegeGoucher College were distributed. The poll asked interviewees from Maryland for whom they will vote: Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Goucher CollegeGoucher College poll results
According to the results, 58.0% of respondents said that they would vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 25.0% are going to vote for businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from September 17 to September 20 among 514 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-4.3 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the gap between both candidates is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, don't have too much faith in the results of single polls, because they often incorporate large errors. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, one can convert them into two-party vote shares. The respective figures are 69.9% for Clinton and 30.1% for Trump.
Results vs. other polls
Clinton can currently count on 69.4% of the major two-party vote in an average of recent polls in Maryland. Relative to her numbers in the Goucher CollegeGoucher College poll Clinton's poll average is 0.5 percentage points worse. This difference is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll in comparison with PollyVote's prediction
The most recent PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 64.9% of the two-party vote in Maryland. This means that the PollyVote forecast is 5.0 points below her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's error margin reveals that this deviation is significant.
