CCES Pre-Election Survey, 2016

November 7, 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 One of the largest pre-election surveys of the American electorate shows Hillary Clinton holding a 4 percentage point lead over Donald Trump.  Among people who said they already voted early or absentee, her lead is 13 points.

 The Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) interviewed 117,316 respondents across all 50 states from October 4th to November 6th. The sample was then pared down to 84,292 likely voters. Nationally, 43 percent of survey respondents chose Hillary Clinton and 39 percent chose Donald Trump for President.   The remaining 18 percent either were undecided or chose Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, or another candidate.

The survey was also designed to have representative samples in each state. In Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, Trump and Clinton are separated by 3 points or less.  Statistically speaking, we cannot be confident of either candidate’s lead in these states.

In the remaining battleground states, Clinton appears to have the edge.  Trump holds leads in Arizona and Georgia. Clinton holds leads in Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia. 

States in which Trump has a clear lead have total electoral votes of 188.  States in which Clinton has a clear lead have total electoral votes of 253. There are 97 electoral votes in states and districts where the races are statistically too close to call.

“The race could go either way.   Hillary Clinton has a definite lead nationwide, but the race is very close in many of the battleground states.  Clinton really needs to win Pennsylvania, and Florida is critical to Trump’s path to victory,” according to Professor Stephen Ansolabehere of Harvard University and the Principal Investigator of the study. Brian Schaffner of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-Principal Investigator of the CCES described the study as “one of the most coherent pictures available of the 2016 race. It’s clear that Clinton is ahead, but not by enough for her to feel fully confident going into Tuesday’s election, especially with a significant share of undecided voters still out there.”   

The Cooperative Congressional Election Study was conducted online by YouGov from October 4th to November 6th. Registered voters were raked to age by gender, race by education, age by 2012 Presidential vote, gender by 2012 vote, race by 2012 vote, education by 2012 vote, and state by 2012 vote. Unregistered voters were raked to age by gender, race by education, state by 2012 turnout, and state by white/nonwhite. Targets were obtained by imputing the 2012 CPS voting and registration supplement and 2012 NEP Exit Poll to the 2012 American Community Study and applying Census life tables to adjust for mortality. Current education was imputed using a logistic regression. 

The Likely voter weight was obtained by multiplying the registered voter weight by the probability of voting (1 for those who have already voted, 0.9 for those “definitely voting”, 0.3 for those “probably voting”, and 0.1 for those not sure). The CCES survey has been conducted every year since 2005.  Details about past studies are available at http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cces/data.

 

 

State By State Results:   Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, YouGov,

National sample size = 84,292

 

Clinton

Trump

Johnson

Stein

Sample Size

U. S.

42.9

39.0

4.7

0.9

84,292

Alabama

31.6

52.6

3.8

0.9

1,388

Alaska

37.4

37.7

12.0

1.0

201

Arizona

37.8

46.3

4.3

1.6

1,567

Arkansas

30.5

48.0

5.3

3.1

736

California

51.8

30.4

4.2

2.6

8,746

Colorado

42.1

36.9

6.1

2.3

1,556

Connecticut

46.6

35.8

4.6

1.4

955

Delaware

50.7

31.6

4.8

1.6

260

DC

79.8

6.8

2.2

1.2

190

Florida

44.0

42.9

2.9

1.6

5,371

Georgia

40.5

45.4

3.3

0.9

2,663

Hawaii

50.3

27.9

4.1

2.1

289

Idaho

25.3

44.8

6.5

1.1

416

Illinois

48.3

33.1

4.4

1.9

3,448

Indiana

36.6

43.8

5.8

1.2

1,742

Iowa

40.4

37.3

5.6

1.6

972

Kansas

31.6

47.5

8.1

1.0

776

Kentucky

32.2

52.2

3.6

1.7

1,229

Louisiana

35.9

47.3

5.2

1.5

1,355

Maine

38.7

34.0

8.5

3.8

437

Maryland

55.0

29.2

3.9

2.0

1,652

Massachusetts

51.3

28.6

4.9

2.5

1,963

Michigan

42.0

36.0

5.4

3.2

3.014

Minnesota

42.3

35.9

5.2

2.2

1,736

Mississippi

39.5

45.5

2.3

0.7

861

Missouri

35.8

43.3

5.4

2.6

1,814

Montana

31.7

44.1

6.7

3.1

307

Nebraska

32.3

44.9

6.5

1.9

506

Nevada

42.5

40.9

6.2

2.0

656

New Hampshire

43.0

34.4

5.9

3.0

430

New Jersey

47.7

35.7

3.4

1.9

2,377

New Mexico

41.7

34.6

11.4

2.6

508

New York

52.7

31.4

3.5

1.9

4,663

North Carolina

43.5

41.3

4.8

1.0

2,916

North Dakota

32.3

44.8

5.3

4.0

201

Ohio

43.2

41.5

4.4

1.7

3,455

Oklahoma

26.8

53.4

7.6

1.7

949

Oregon

43.8

36.0

5.4

2.8

1,112

Pennsylvania

42.7

41.2

3.8

1.9

3,704

Rhode Island

47.0

29.2

5.2

1.7

287

South Carolina

35.6

46.6

3.5

1.7

1,298

South Dakota

31.3

49.6

6.2

0.6

246

Tennessee

33.9

48.3

4.4

1.5

1,729

Texas

36.8

44.7

5.3

1.3

5,874

Utah

23.7

32.8

12.3

1.9

676

Vermont

40.5

24.5

3.4

5.0

191

Virginia

46.1

37.0

6.0

1.1

2,460

Washington

47.4

31.7

5.5

2.6

1,985

West Virginia

25.7

54.0

5.1

3.0

472

Wisconsin

42.2

37.7

4.6

2.6

1,794

Wyoming

26.2

59.0

6.3

1.8

151