Three months out, Opponent A polled at 29.4 percent. The public framing called her a frontrunner with room to grow. We looked at the same number alongside everything moving around it and called it a ceiling.
That distinction changed the architecture of the race. A frontrunner with room to grow is one race. A frontrunner at ceiling, with a third candidate confirmed in, is a completely different one. We ran against the second race. Every number that came in afterward confirmed which one was real.