RCP looks at all polls available and provides a comprehensive report. They do not poll themselves.
Yeah, but most of the polls they are using for their averages are from before Ted Cruz declared that he was running. The few polls post Ted Cruz declaring that I have seen have him making considerable gains.
Let’s not forget how far off the RCP averages were for last November’s congressional elections, mainly because they simply take all these polls (including the clearly partisan, biased ones and ones from dodgy outfits) and simply average them all out.