Pollsters also had Bush beating Gore by 19 points back in 1999.
Which just goes to show the value of polls this far out. Yes, they do reflect how things stand today (any one poll can be garbage, but if you get a few that agree then they are probably close) but not predictive of how things will be 19 months from now.
I don’t think they really reflect how things stand today. They could not predict the winner of the 2000 or 2004 election even based on exit polls.