Is what someone said the 1st time or the second time that's true?

Neither statement is fact or true, in and of itself.

The truth is what occurred. The true statement is whichever describes what actually took place.

…I meant why do people automatically believe the 2nd version?

By how much is Clinton ahead? Is it what what was reported earlier during the day i.e 12 points or later during the day i.e by 5 points?

Regarding the question you asked, I agree with @zenvelo.

Regarding the question of whether we should trust earlier or later political polls, my inclination is to trust later polls. I don’t assume that people are being more or less truthful in one poll than another, which seems to be what you are implying. I assume that they are changing their minds about the candidates’ personalities and positions on the issues, such that the latest poll generally reflects the current situation.

It it’s two different poll takers, then there is no more truthiness in the second than in the first since it probably is polling different samples.

If a person tells two different stories about the same thing then it’s impossible to say one or the other is more likely to be true without much more detail. Even then it’s hard to know for sure. Neither version might be the entire objective truth.

As far as the polls, the reporter might have misspoke, or a new poll might have come out inbetween statements, or maybe you misheard and it was two different polls.

Who cares about the polls, the polls aren’t an exact science. There is a lot of inherent problems with polls. Go and vote.

There is only one poll that counts, on November 8.

The person might be updating their info to be more correct: e.g. I have $20 in my wallet, oops I only have $10. I’ll be there at 5:00pm, oops, (gotta pick up the kids) I’ll be there at 6:00pm.

I usually assume that what people say is true unless I have evidence to the contrary. However if someone lies it casts doubt on everything they subsequently say.

But people in general automatically believe the latter story for some reason.

By the way re. the 12 and 5 points ahead, it was in the news, so I just figured they took the 5 sources and averaged it out.

Thanks all.

If there were no polls for public consumption till after the election , that would only be a fabulous thing.