Trump and Clinton tied in new national poll

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

10 minutes ago, Redstreak said:

*polls half a year from election showing near tie*

"It's moronic to look at polls at this point, too early. Doesn't matter. Let's wait till much closer"

*Only 1 month later*

"Look at her lead!!! Such a strong candidate, it's already decided"

 

2 hours ago, LebaneseDude said:

Ignoring the ABC News poll, the average is still 5 points which is not close as it's larger than the margin of error.

Also the point of polls isn't looking at discrete numbers. It's looking at rates of change. 

You don't look at the polls to see who's the winner (unless it's a double digit lead consistently across the board days before the election)

You do them to get an idea on how the landscape is changing. 

We are also much closer. We're almost past the Democratic primary. Hillary's numbers will only swell when Sanders finally endorses her.

Barring a political earthquake, it's as good as done according to the battleground states.

[Redstreak 6,653]

23 minutes ago, LebaneseDude said:

 

You don't look at the polls to see who's the winner (unless it's a double digit lead consistently across the board days before the election)

You do them to get an idea on how the landscape is changing. 

We are also much closer. We're almost past the Democratic primary. Hillary's numbers will only swell when Sanders finally endorses her.

Barring a political earthquake, it's as good as done according to the battleground states.

Ok, and at that point only month ago the trend was that Trump was going up while Clinton was still slightly going down, and we were told to ignore those, it doesn't matter.

Now that the trends are reversed, suddenly the polls are being treated as scripture.

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

3 minutes ago, Redstreak said:

Ok, and at that point only month ago the trend was that Trump was going up while Clinton was still slightly going down, and we were told to ignore those, it doesn't matter.

Now that the trends are reversed, suddenly the polls are being treated as scripture.

Who are you referring to?  I don't remember using the discrete values of these polls to justify anything.

I remember vividly that when Trump's numbers were rising as Hillary's stagnated, many users including myself reasoned that they were due to the Republican nomination contest being effectively over while Bernie and Hillary remained in dead heat, skewing the numbers in favor of Trump as the Republican/conservative base lined up behind him.

Now that the Democratic nomination contest is also effectively over, Hillary's numbers are beginning to rise as the Democratic/liberal base begins to line up behind her to match Trump's.

So current polls are far representative of the potential election results given that now BOTH primaries are decided.

There's also the fact that people were quoting individual polls, not general results. They would quote a poll showing Trump in the lead when it's an outlier, for example.

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Frankly I'm confused why you're bringing this up in this thread when this thread shows Trump being near Clinton with no clear winner?  The point is to look at rates of change, which show Hillary going up and Trump decreasing and to look at polling averages to get the most reasonable result. This shows Hillary comfortably in the lead on the national and battleground state level.