Clinton leads in Maryland by 33 points in new Goucher College poll
Results of a new poll carried out by Goucher College were released. The poll asked respondents from Maryland for whom they will vote: Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Goucher College poll results
The results show that 58.0% of participants said that they would cast a ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while 25.0% are going to vote for real estate developer Donald Trump.
The poll was conducted from September 17 to September 20. A total of 514 likely voters responded. There is a sampling error of +/-4.3 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the gap between both candidates is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls can incorporate large errors, and should be interpreted with caution. At least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, you can convert them into two-party vote shares. This yields figures of 69.9% for Clinton and 30.1% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Maryland has Clinton at 69.4% of the two-party vote. This value is 0.5 percentage points lower than her corresponding numbers in the Goucher College poll. This deviation is within the poll's sampling error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote prediction
The most recent PollyVote expects Clinton to gain 66.0% of the two-party vote in Maryland. This means that Polly's prediction is 3.9 points below her polling numbers. Again, a look at the poll's sampling error indicates that this difference is negligible.