Christopher Newport Univ.*CNU* poll in Virginia: Trump trails by a sizable margin
By Results of a new poll conducted by Christopher Newport Univ.CNU were distributed on October 12. The poll asked respondents from Virginia for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Virginia is traditionally a purple state, where Republicans and Democrats have historically achieved similar levels of voter support. This is the reason why the election outcome in that state is viewed as important in determining which party will win the majority of electoral votes.
Christopher Newport Univ.CNU poll results
The results show that 44.0% of interviewees plan to give their vote to former First Lady Hillary Clinton, whereas 29.0% would vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted from October 11 to October 14, among a random sample of 809 likely voters. The sampling error is +/-3.6 points, which means that the levels of voter support for the two candidates differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls should be treated with caution, as they can incorporate substantial 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, we convert them into two-party vote shares. The respective figures are 60.3% for Clinton and 39.7% for Trump.
Results compared to other polls
If we look at an average of Virginia polls, Clinton's current two-party vote share is at 56.6%. In comparison to her numbers in the Christopher Newport Univ.CNU poll Clinton's poll average is 3.8 percentage points worse. This margin is outside the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is an outlier.
The poll compared with PollyVote's forecast
The current PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 53.0% of the two-party vote in Virginia. Hence, Polly's forecast is 7.3 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore outside the poll's sampling error.
