Massachusetts: 26 points lead for Clinton in new WBUR/MassINC poll
By WBUR/MassINC released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Massachusetts were asked for whom they will vote: Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton.
WBUR/MassINC poll results
According to the results, 57.0% of interviewees will give their vote to former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 31.0% plan to vote for businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted between October 13 and October 16. The sample size was 502 likely voters. If one takes into account the poll's sampling error of +/-4.4 percentage points, the gap in voter support is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
As any other method, polls are subject to bias. As a result, don't rely too much on the results of a single poll. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to benchmark forecasts, we convert them into two-party vote shares. This procedure yields figures of 64.8% for Clinton and 35.2% for Trump.
Results vs. other polls
Clinton currently runs at 64.2% of the major two-party vote according to an average of recent polls in Massachusetts. In comparison to her numbers in the WBUR/MassINC poll Clinton's poll average is 0.6 percentage points lower. This deviation is within the poll's error margin, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote prediction
The most recent PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 64.5% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. Hence, the PollyVote forecast is 0.3 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus within the poll's sampling error.
