A recent Fox poll, for instance, showed Mrs. Clinton ahead by just two points. But it showed her ahead by six points in the one-on-one matchup, without Jill Stein or Gary Johnson listed as candidates.
The CNN/ORC poll showed Mrs. Clinton trailing among likely voters but ahead among registered voters.
These big gaps between registered and likely voters, and the four-way and two-way ballots, haven’t been the norm so far this year.
There’s no “right” answer about which is more reliable. I happen to prefer to look at samples of registered voters — a larger sample, and I can mentally apply a slight and consistent likely-voter penalty to the Democrats — but I know that generally the likely-voter numbers are more accurate. I’m agnostic about whether the four-way or two-way polls are better in this particular election, since Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stein blur the line between candidates who deserve inclusion and those who do not.
Most of the forecasting models and polling averages use the four-way race and likely-voter polls. Right now, those may offer a particularly pessimistic picture for Mrs. Clinton.
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