How the USC/L.A. Times Daybreak tracking poll works

The USC Dornsife/L.A. Times Presidential Election "Daybreak" Poll asks more than 400 people each day about their voting intentions. The poll is part of the Understanding America Study (UAS) at the University of Southern California's Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research.

Each day's poll respondents are a subset of the UAS election panel, roughly 3000 U.S. citizens who were randomly recruited from among all households in the United States. Respondents are asked three predictive questions: What is the percent chance that (1) you will vote in the presidential election? (2) you will vote for Clinton, Trump, or someone else? and (3) Clinton, Trump or someone else will win?

Results are weighted to match demographic characteristics, such as race and gender, from the U.S. Census Current Population Survey, and are aligned to the 2012 presidential election outcome using self-reported votes in that election.

These charts are updated daily (just after midnight) with an average of all of the prior week's responses. The Daybreak Poll began on July 4, 2016, and will run through the November election. It is being conducted in partnership with the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and the Los Angeles Times. For more information about the survey's methods and to download the source data please visit http://election.usc.edu/.

Updated Sept. 19: The display of the poll results originally showed too large an area of uncertainty. It was corrected on Sept. 19 for all results back to the start of the poll. The error did not affect the poll results, only the way the uncertainty was visualized.

Additional credits: Lily Mihalik. Photos: Irfan Khan and Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times.