That timing allows for a more direct comparison of what these polls are finding about the state of the race. Poll watchers sometimes obsess over small differences in topline numbers, even those within a poll's reported margin of sampling error. This variation across polls is testament to the tremendous variation in the methods used to conduct polling these days." Looking over the poll results, Zukin said, "I see reasonable variation and a lot of reasons for reasonable variation." Zukin's advice is to turn to the averages and focus on trends within individual polls, to ensure consistency across methods.

Source: CNN August 20, 2020 16:18 UTC