2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: New CBS News New Hampshire poll -- Sanders CRUSHING at 56% to Clinton 42% for a 14% lead! [View all]Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)A poll can be used as a snapshot in time to assess whether a campaign is on the right track or the wrong track in terms of meeting its goals of getting its message across.
For example, if you look at current Iowa polling as conclude "Cruz will be the Republican nominee," you don't know how to use polling data; if you read that polling and conclude "Cruz will win the Iowa caucus," you again confirm that you don't know how to use polling data; but if you read that polling and conclude "Cruz seems to be on the right track and Carson seems to have peaked too early," then you are drawing the types of conclusions that can be validly inferred from the polling.
Why is this so complicated to you? Is it because you try to preemptively crown Your Highness based on national polling and everyone rightly concludes that only an idiot would read polling that way and so you resent when anyone uses polling data to draw any conclusions from it?