Massachusetts: New WBUR/MassINC poll shows Trump trailing by 26 points
WBUR/MassINC published the results of a new poll. In this poll, interviewees from Massachusetts were asked for whom they will vote: Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
WBUR/MassINC poll results
Of those who answered the question, 57.0% said that they intend to vote for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whereas 31.0% indicated that they would give their vote to billionaire Donald Trump.
This poll was conducted from October 13 to October 16, among a random sample of 502 likely voters. Given the poll's sampling error of +/-4.4 percentage points, the gap between both candidates is statistically significant.
Putting the results in context
Individual polls can incorporate substantial biases, and should be treated with caution. Rather, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from other methods, one can convert them into two-party vote shares. This procedure results in values of 64.8% for Clinton and 35.2% for Trump.
Comparison to other polls
An average of recent polls in Massachusetts has Clinton at 67.6% of the two-party vote. This value is 2.8 percentage points higher than her corresponding numbers in the WBUR/MassINC poll. This difference is within the poll's sampling error, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier.
Comparison to the combined PollyVote
The current PollyVote anticipates Clinton to gain 65.5% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. Hence, the PollyVote is 0.7 points above her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is therefore within the poll's error margin.