A poll is weather. It is not a verdict.

A new poll dropped and the internet treated it like a ruling. It was a snapshot with a margin and a likely-voter screen that the graphic did not have room for. Horse-race coverage is easy because the number looks like a scoreboard. Governing does not look like a scoreboard.

We will report polls when they are the news — a real shift, a real sample, a real date. We will not build a religion around a Tuesday survey. Voters still live in days.