On Monday morning, both CNN/ORC and CBS News released new polls looking at the national head-to-head race between Trump and Hillary Clinton. CNN/ORC shows Trump up by three points, a 10-point swing from 10 days ago and a six-point increase for Trump alone. That translates as: bump.

But CBS's poll was different. It showed Trump and Clinton tied at 42 — after a survey from two weeks ago had them tied at 40.

Two different pictures of the race.

But let's set that aside for a second and look at the details of what changed in the CNN/ORC poll.

There is some fascinating post-convention movement captured there. Among all college graduates, for example, Trump was trailing by 14 points before the convention and trails by 16 now. But among non-college graduates, he went from being down three points to being up 11. He gained eight points with that latter group thanks to the convention. Among white non-college graduates, the change was even more stark. He was winning with them by 18 points; now, he's up 37. Among white college graduates he went from up one to down four.

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White non-college graduates were one of the groups that moved most heavily toward Trump after the convention, along with independents (who have accounted for a lot of the swings in recent polls) and people aged 50 to 64.

It's why he's in this thing. As MSNBC's Steve Kornacki, points out, Romney won whites with college degrees by 14 points and those without by 26. Right now, Clinton leads with the former group by four — and Trump with the latter by almost 40.

Trump also saw improvements in those saying he was in touch with America's problems (gaining nine points) and being someone people would be proud to have as president (gaining seven). On that latter metric, though, he's still only at 39 percent — but Clinton's only at 38, dropping four points.

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But then there's CBS. CBS's poll saw Trump gain two points with Republicans and four with Democrats — but stayed the same with independents while Clinton gained. Overall, a wash.

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So going back to the original point: It's possible that CNN/ORC's poll reflects a 10-point swing in the race over eight days and that CBS is wrong. It's also possible that the July 13–16 CNN/ORC poll overstated Clinton's support and the new one overstates Trump's — and that CBS is right. That's why we look at polling averages, like that from RealClearPolitics.

We noted earlier this month that the reason the race was tightening was more a function of support for Clinton dropping than Trump gaining. After the convention, the RCP average clearly shows Trump gaining support — as you'd expect from a convention. The average now has Trump up by a fraction of a point, suggesting that the race is tied.

But notice that Trump's overall average is just a bit under his all-time high of support — and Clinton is just above her all-time low. The question for Trump has always been whether or not he has a ceiling and, if not, how high he can go. Even after the apparent convention bump, he still hasn't set a new ceiling.

The most important thing to remember about these polls is that they are taken at probably the most favorable moment for Trump: after his convention and before Clinton's. In 2008, the days after the Republican convention were one of the two points at which John McCain led Barack Obama. This is a volatile moment.

If you want to summarize the moment, here's a good way to do it: Trump appears to have been boosted by his convention and the race is now essentially tied — but we'll have a better sense for where things are headed after things have settled in a few weeks' time. Sorry that this is the best we can do, but, you know. Polling.

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