After the 2016 presidential race, when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton despite polls heavily suggesting a Clinton victory, many people are hesitant to draw any conclusions about where this year’s race stands.

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Polls are pieces of news to consider and scrutinize in the run-up to an election. Several such surveys this cycle have Democrat Joe Biden ahead or within single digits of President Donald Trump in key battleground states. But after the 2016 race, when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton despite polls heavily suggesting a Clinton victory, many are hesitant to draw any conclusions about where this year’s race stands.

The Texas Tribune’s co-founder and executive editor, Ross Ramsey, says that folks often misconstrue polls as conclusions or predictions, rather than snapshots in time. He argues voters need to be asking a series of questions: What is the margin of error? Who sponsored the poll? Did the pollsters survey enough voters? What happened in the news cycle during that time? Does the poll reflect a larger trend seen across multiple polls?

Watch Ramsey put these polls into perspective.

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