Massachusetts: Clinton holds whopping lead in Boston Globe/Suffolk poll
By On November 6, Boston Globe/Suffolk released the results of a new poll, in which respondents from Massachusetts were asked for whom they will vote: Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
Boston Globe/Suffolk poll results
Of those who replied, 57.0% said that they plan to vote for former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, whereas 25.0% revealed that they would give their vote to businessman Donald Trump.
The poll was carried out between October 24 and October 26. The sample size was 500 likely voters. The sampling error is +/-4.4 percentage points, which means that the levels of voter support for the Republican and the Democratic candidate differ significantly.
Putting the results in context
As a general rule, however, a good strategy is to not have too much faith in the results of single polls, because they can incorporate large errors. Instead of trusting the results from single polls, research in forecasting recommends to consult combined polls or, even better, a combined forecast that draws upon forecasts from different methods, each of which draws upon different data.
To make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, you can convert them into two-party vote shares. This procedure yields values of 69.5% for Clinton and 30.5% for Trump.
Results vs. other polls
Clinton is currently at 67.5% of the two-party vote according to an average of recent polls in Massachusetts. This value is 2 percentage points lower than her corresponding numbers in the Boston Globe/Suffolk poll. This margin is within the poll's error margin, which means that the poll is not an outlier.
Results compared to the combined PollyVote forecast
The most recent PollyVote forecasts Clinton to gain 65.3% of the two-party vote in Massachusetts. Hence, the combined PollyVote is 4.2 points below her polling numbers. The PollyVote forecast is thus in line with the poll's error margin.
