Oregon Public Broadcasting*OPB* poll in Oregon: Trump trails by a comfortable margin
Results of a new poll carried out by Oregon Public BroadcastingOPB were circulated. The poll asked participants from Oregon for whom they will vote: Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Oregon Public BroadcastingOPB poll results
Of those who replied, 43.0% said that they would vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 36.0% indicated that they would give their vote to billionaire Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out from October 6 to October 13 with 600 likely voters. Taking into account the poll's margin of error of +/-4.0 percentage points, the spread between both candidates is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
In general, however, one should not have too much faith in the results of single polls, as they can incorporate large errors. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, you can translate them into two-party vote shares. The resulting figures are 54.4% for Clinton and 45.6% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
If we look at an average of Oregon polls, Clinton's current two-party vote share is at 55.6%. This value is 1.2 percentage points higher than her respective numbers in the Oregon Public BroadcastingOPB poll. This margin is within the poll's error margin, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
The poll compared with PollyVote's prediction
The most recent PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 57.3% of the two-party vote in Oregon. This means that Polly's combined forecast is 2.9 points above her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's margin of error.