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Hipple Patel October 24, 2008

With Election Day approaching, polls are making headlines. But it can be tricky figuring out what they really mean—if they mean anything at all.

As soon as the Republican Convention in St. Paul was over last month, pollsters scrambled to measure its impact (as they had for the Democratic Convention in Denver the week before).

Gallup released a poll showing 50 percent of registered voters favoring Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate, compared with 46 percent for Senator Barack Obama, the Democrat; an ABC News poll found Obama leading McCain 47 percent to 46 percent; and a third poll by CBS News had McCain leading Obama, but by a closer margin of 46 percent to 44.

So what's going on here? Why are there so many different results in the same time frame? The short answer: Polls are complicated.

With the November election just weeks away, the news is filled with polls handicapping the presidential race. Not only are people fascinated by everyone else's opinions; politicians use polls to help tailor their messages to voters, and journalists use them to find out what people care about and why.

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