FOX poll: Clinton with 8 points lead
By FOX released the results of a new national poll, in which respondents were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump.
FOX poll results
The results show that 49.0% of respondents indicated that they would cast a ballot for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, while 41.0% would vote for billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted via phone from October 10 to October 12 among 917 likely voters. The sampling error is +/-3.0 points, which means that the poll results for Trump and Clinton differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, don't have too much faith in the results of single polls, as they can contain large errors. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, we convert them into two-party vote shares. The resulting figures are 54.4% for Clinton and 45.6% for Trump.
Results in comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls sees Clinton at 53.5% of the two-party vote. This value is 0.9 percentage points lower than respective numbers in the FOX poll. This margin is within the poll's margin of error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll compared with PollyVote's prediction
The current PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 54.0% of the two-party vote. That is, Polly's prediction is 0.4 points below polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's sampling error indicates that this difference is insignificant.
