New IBD/TIPP poll: Clinton and Trump in a tossup
Results of a new national poll conducted by IBD/TIPP were released. The poll asked respondents for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
IBD/TIPP poll results
According to the results, 45.0% of participants are going to vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 43.0% plan to vote for businessman Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted via phone from October 25 to October 30, among a random sample of 993 likely voters. There is a sampling error of +/-3.2 percentage points. Considering this error margin, the race is currently a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
Single polls should be interpreted with caution, as they may include substantial biases. At the very least, one should check how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
For the following comparison, we translate Trump's and Clinton's raw poll numbers into shares of the two-party vote. This yields figures of 51.1% for Clinton and 48.9% for Trump. To compare: 52.3% was gained by Clinton in the IBD/TIPP poll on October 29, for Trump this result was only 47.7%.
Results vs. other polls
An average of recent polls has Clinton at 52.8% of the two-party vote. Relative to numbers in the IBD/TIPP poll Clinton's poll average is 1.7 percentage points better. This margin is within the poll's margin of error, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote prediction
The most recent PollyVote foresees Clinton to gain 53.5% of the two-party vote. This means that the PollyVote is 2.4 points above polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's sampling error.