Public service announcement: For now, you should ignore surveys testing potential Democrat/Republican matchups for the 2016 presidential election.

I’m referring to polls like The Washington Post-ABC News survey released last week, which made headlines with the finding that Hillary Clinton enjoys a big lead against Republicans like Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. Other media organizations have also been releasing head-to-head polls like this, and more are sure to follow in the coming months.

I realize it’s tempting to believe that these head-to-head polls have at least a little bit of meaningful information in them. Poll numbers are irresistible to political obsessives like me, but it’s just too early for them to be useful in forecasting the general election.

Take the case of Mrs. Clinton’s husband, Bill. In October 1991, Mr. Clinton, then the little-known Arkansas governor, pulled in only 20 percent of the vote in a prospective head-to-head matchup against President George H.W. Bush. His standing in the polls against Mr. Bush averaged only 34 percent as late as January 1992. But in the months that followed, Mr. Clinton gained stature while winning the Democratic nomination, and Mr. Bush’s numbers plunged as his Gulf War-induced surge in approval dissipated. The campaign eventually brought the electoral fundamentals into focus: an electorate ready for change after 12 years of Republican control of the White House, a relatively weak economy, and an unpopular president. Mr. Clinton went on to beat President Bush by more than five points, winning 53.5 percent of the major-party vote in a three-way contest that also featured the eccentric billionaire H. Ross Perot.