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Latest Florida Polls: Final Results In Swing State Hard To Pin Down

By Zachary Volkert
Published on: 23:00 PST, Nov 7, 2016

On the eve of the election, the latest Florida polls have emerged to indicate where the pivotal swing state’s final results will fall on Tuesday.

The last of the polls released Monday — and the only one to feature data through Nov. 7 — came from Google Consumer Surveys and showed a five-percentage point lead for Trump with a margin or error of 2.7 percentage points. It collected data from 1,350 Florida voters, and has a “B” rating from Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.

Five other separate polls were also released on the Monday before the election that attempted to pin down just what the results of Florida’s elections would be. Sticking with its reputation as a swing state, predictions of its behavior on Tuesday have been less conclusive than the Google survey.

One of the largest of the latest Florida polls comes from Trafalgar Group, which tends to lean Republican, but had more than 1,100 respondents to its recent survey. It’s the second of three of Monday’s last-minute guesses that sees the results going in favor of Trump, by four percentage points over Clinton. That’s outside of its margin of error, and it should be noted that Silver rates this pollster as a “C.”

Other polls coming out of Florida call much closer results. Opinion Savvy illustrates a two-percentage point victory for Clinton, though that is within its 3.4-percentage point margin of error. Silver gives it an even worse rating than Trafalgar with a “C-,” and it also has a smaller sample size of just 853 respondents.

Quinnipiac and Ipsos have a much better track record than some of these other two Florida polls, both with an “A-” from Silver, but looking at their surveys is unlikely to clear anything up for you. Each of their results yielded a one-percentage point difference favoring Clinton. Similarly, CCES/YouGov, which also has a respectable “B” rating, called the final tally 43-42, falling in favor of Trump and based off of more than 5,000 voters.

Despite all of these polls, Silver still cautions that it’s not uncommon for such predictions to have a three point miscalculation. With the numbers so close, that fuzzy line could fall in either candidate’s favor. While most pollsters are betting on Clinton in Florida, an upset is absolutely within reach.

“Clinton’s lead is small enough that it wouldn’t take more than a normal amount of polling error to wipe the lead out and leave Trump the winner of the national popular vote. If Clinton wins by three percentage points, she’s very likely to win the White House. But that’s still a medium-sized ‘if.'”

One thing remains clear from the latest Florida polls: The swing state is truly a battleground. Most poll aggregators still see a slight tilt toward blue, however, which may at least partially be due to the news that the F.B.I. will not be re-opening its investigation of Clinton’s email server.

One key indicator of the results of the race has been the stock market. Unlike polls in states like Florida, Wall Street has been consistent in its reactions: surging when Clinton does well, and downturning when Trump gains on her. U.S. stocks increased at the highest rate in a single day since March 1 on Monday, while also registering its biggest volatility measure drop since June, reported Reuters.

Still, that may at least partially be attributable to the way that Clinton clawed back her advantage in measures of the popular vote. Of the 12 polls aggregated by Real Clear Politics using only November data, Clinton is ahead in 11 of them. In the largest one, with a massive sample size of 30,145 likely voters, she was ahead by seven percentage points, according to NBCNews/SM data. Trump, on the other hand, is only ahead in one such hypothetical face-off: the LA Times survey where he leads by five percentage points, just outside of its 4.5-percentage point margin of error.

While good news for Clinton, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she’ll be able to take the presidency. North Carolina and Florida are still nail-bitingly close, and the loss of both of them could easily shift the final results of the election if she loses another state leaning in her favor. With 15 and 29 electoral votes, respectively, the pair is the most essential swing states. Other battlegrounds, like the latest Ohio polls, show victory for Republicans.

The latest Florida polls may not offer a clear outcome, but who do you think will triumph in the swing state’s final results?

[Featured Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]

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