Illinois: Clinton holds overwhelming advantage in new The Simon Poll/SIU*The Simon Poll/SIU* poll
By The Simon Poll/SIUThe Simon Poll/SIU released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Illinois were asked for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
The Simon Poll/SIUThe Simon Poll/SIU poll results
According to the results, 53.0% of respondents plan to vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 28.0% plan to vote for real estate developer Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted from September 27 to October 2, among a random sample of 865 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-3.3 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the gap between both candidates is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. Thus, as a general rule, one should not focus too much on the results of a single poll. Rather than relying on results from single polls, the evidence-based approach is to look at combined polls or, even better, the combined PollyVote forecast that relies on forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
In order to make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, you can translate them into shares of the two-party vote. This yields figures of 65.4% for Clinton and 34.6% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Illinois has Clinton at 59.2% of the two-party vote. In comparison to her numbers in the The Simon Poll/SIUThe Simon Poll/SIU poll Clinton's poll average is 6.2 percentage points worse. This margin is outside the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The latest PollyVote foresees Clinton to gain 59.1% of the two-party vote in Illinois. This means that Polly's forecast is 6.3 points below her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's margin of error shows that this difference is significant.
