Where does this presidential race stand? Unfortunately the plethora of public polls does more to confuse than to clarify. Contorting and distorting the data with absurd “likely voter” models only makes matters worse. Cutting through the clutter, a few facts are clear: • Averaging the recent polls together gives George W. Bush a one-point lead, 47 percent for Bush to 46 percent for John Kerry. • About 5 percent of the electorate remains undecided. • Almost every poll that has released battleground-state results shows Kerry ahead there. For instance, the ABC/Washington Post poll that had Kerry four points behind nationally...