New Polls: NBC Shows Clinton Beating Trump by 6 Points, CNN Shows Trump Beating Clinton by 2

So, Which One Is Right?

There are three new presidential election polls out Tuesday morning. CNN shows Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton by 2 points, NBC News shows Clinton beating Trump by 6 points, and an extensive 50-state poll of nearly 75,000 registered voters by the Washington Post shows Clinton beating Trump in Texas.

So, which one is the right one?

Well, all, and none.

And none are “wrong.” A poll is a poll and unless it’s a highly partisan poll designed for a specific result, reputable pollsters deliver reputable results. 

So, as Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight often stresses, averaging the poll results generally gives a better, more accurate result.

Including the CNN and NBC News polls (Washington Post was state-by-state, not a national total), the Real Clear Politics polling average now shows Hillary Clinton up by 3.3 points.

Talking Points Memo’s PollTracker, an average of nearly 50 different polls, has Clinton beating Trump by 2.2 points.

And Silver’s own FiveThirtyEight Polls-plus forecast (often updated several times a day) right now shows Clinton with better than two-to-one chances (67.5% to 32.5%) of beating Trump.

Who will win?

CNN says 59 percent of voters think Clinton will, and just 34 percent believe Trump will.