Conflicting polls on Hillary Clinton; What gives?

(CNN) —

Two respected polls released recently suggest polar opposite storylines about Hillary Clinton.

One suggests she’s weathered recent controversy over her use of private email as secretary of state, and is even beginning to rebound. Another suggests her ratings have suffered as a result.

What gives?

The CBS News/New York Times poll and the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll appear to tell deeply diverging stories, but there are some commonalities in the data that reveal the real story.

Take Clinton’s favorability rating. The CBS/New York Times poll finds the public about evenly split on the former first lady, with 35% holding a favorable view, 36% unfavorable and 28% in the middle. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds almost exactly the same thing: an evenly divided public, with 42% having a positive view and the same share a negative one, and 14% in the middle. Aside from the size of the neutral response, not much difference there.

Hillary Clinton, while U.S. secretary of state, checks her Blackberry on a military plane in October 2011. Clinton said she used a private email account for her official work at the State Department and that she did so out of convenience. But she admitted in retrospect "it would have been better" to use multiple emails.

PHOTO: Kevin LamarquE/Pool/AP

Hillary Clinton email controversy

Likewise, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 50% rated Clinton as not “honest and straightforward,” while CBS and The New York Times pegged the number at 45%. Just a slight difference in statistical terms.

So why the dueling headlines?

The differences are more in the point of comparison than anything in the current findings.

In their March polls, these two had divergent results on Clinton’s favorability rating. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll – which was conducted in early March just as the email controversy was emerging and before she responded to the story in a press conference at the U.N. – found views of Clinton tipping positive, 44% to 36% negative, with 19% neutral. Later in the month, once the story had some time to simmer, the CBS News poll found her underwater, with 37% holding an unfavorable opinion and 26% favorable.

Essentially, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal analysis is comparing Clinton’s ratings now to those just before the story broke, while the CBS/New York Times poll is looking at Clinton’s ratings now compared to the controversy’s immediate aftermath.

It’s the same thing with both polls’ findings on perceptions of Clinton’s honesty. The CBS/New York Times poll is again looking back to that late-March CBS News finding, after several weeks of questions about why she used a private email server, while the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is comparing views of her honesty now to results from a poll conducted last year.

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The consigliere - John Podesta, one of the top liberal minds in politics, will serve as Clinton's campaign chairman. A former White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton and a top counselor for President Obama, Podesta has the stature to speak truth to power. His influential role in early structural and strategic decisions suggests that he will be a far more hands-on campaign chairman than most.

PHOTO: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The manager - Robby Mook impressed Clinton-land when he ran Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign to primary wins in Nevada, Ohio and Indiana, and again when he led Terry McAuliffe - a longtime Clinton friend and confidant - to the Virginia governor's mansion in 2013. The numbers-focused, Vermont-native has had his hand in hiring many of top campaign strategists this time around and is pushing Clinton's sharp focus on Iowa and New Hampshire.

PHOTO: CSPAN

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The strategist - Joel Benenson started to work with Clinton in 2014, when the former secretary of state was mulling a run and piecing a staff together. The lead pollster for President Obama's winning campaign and re-election, who also worked on Bill Clinton's 1996 race, will be the top campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton. His firm is already starting to test themes and messages for this campaign.

PHOTO: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The adman - Jim Margolis also once worked to defeat Hillary Clinton. Now, he is working with her. Margolis was a senior adviser to both President Barack Obama's successful campaigns and has worked with a number of senators, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Margolis will server as Clinton's top media adviser and ad maker.

PHOTO: GMMB website

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The right-hand man - Marlon Marshall has long been Robby Mook's trusted right-hand man and is seen as a talented organizer and field director. He knows what went right -- and wrong -- during Hillary Clinton's first presidential race because he was there and will be in charge of making adjustments this time. He helped found the Democratic consulting firm 270 Strategies and during a stint at the White House was tasked with promoting Obamacare enrollment.

PHOTO: Kris Connor/Getty Images for SiriusXM

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The fundraiser - While Hillary Clinton mulled her presidential run, Dennis Cheng pulled double duty for a short time: Working as the chief development officer at The Clinton Foundation and starting to build a 2016 fundraising team. Cheng, who is credited with raising more than $248 million for the foundation since 2011, will fill the campaign's top finance post and take on the daunting task of fortifying what is expected to be a billion-dollar campaign.

PHOTO: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The gate-keeper - Huma Abedin has worn many hats for Hillary Clinton - intern, "body woman," chief of staff - but the title that best describes her is gate keeper and confidant. No one without the last name Clinton is said to have a tighter relationship with the former secretary of state. Although her formal title in the 2016 campaign is not yet clear, she remains one of Clinton's most trusted personal aides.

PHOTO: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The wonk - As the campaign's top policy adviser, Jake Sullivan will look to navigate Clinton's campaign through complex issues, particularly on foreign policy matters like Iran. In 2011, Sullivan became the youngest director of policy in department history, an experience that earned him Clinton's implicit respect and trust.

PHOTO: Department of State youtube video

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The protector- Cheryl Mills is one of Hillary Clinton's closest, longest confidants. She was a top lawyer in the Clinton White House and served as Hillary Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department. She also is a member of the Clinton Foundation board of directors. While Mills isn't expected to hold a formal campaign role, she will continue to have something more important: Hillary Clinton's ear.

PHOTO: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The enforcer - Most journalists in Washington can remember the last time they got a nasty-gram from Philippe Reines and a simple Google search will lead you to a handful. The veteran of Capitol Hill and Clinton's senior adviser at State has been a part of Clinton's communication team for years and is expected to play a role in 2016. This time, however, it will be from the outside.

PHOTO: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The communicator - Jennifer Palmieri has a deep history with Democratic presidential elections and will serve as the campaign's communications director. A member of the team's senior staff, Palmieri is known for her cordial and direct relations with the press, dating back to her time in the first Clinton White House. She last served as President Obama's communications director, but left the White House in March to join the Clinton campaign.

PHOTO: White House youtube video

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The image maven - The job of retooling Hillary Clinton's image will fall primarily to Kristina Schake, a communications veteran whose background includes working for issue campaigns, multinational corporations and Hollywood stars. As Michelle Obama's communications director, Schake was credited with helping to turn the first lady into an everywoman known for dancing on national TV and touring colleges with her daughter.

PHOTO: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for HBO

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The brain - Neera Tanden is currently the head of the Center for American Progress. She's worked with Clinton since 1997, serving as a deputy campaign manager in the 2000 Senate campaign, her policy director in the Senate and during the 2008 presidential campaign. The two regularly talk and because CAP is a pro-Clinton research body, Tanden will continue to wield influence inside and outside the campaign.

PHOTO: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The institutionalist - Of all the people working on Clinton's 2016 campaign, Mandy Grunwald may know the Clintons the longest. Grunwald first worked for the Clintons in 1992, when she served as director of advertising on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. Grunwald has grown closer with Hillary Clinton through the years and guided her advertising on the 2008 campaign. This time, she will be one of the top strategists to shape her message.

PHOTO: Getty Images

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The politico - Amanda Renteria, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2014 in Calfornia, will serve as Clinton's national political director. She was the first Latina chief of staff on Capitol Hill when she worked for Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow in 2008.

PHOTO: Amanda Renteria Campaign Office

Photos: Hillary Clinton's team

The techie - Stephanie Hannon left Google and her role as the company's director of product management for civic innovation and social impact to join the Clinton campaign. Hannon will oversee the implementation of Clinton's digital strategy, including both the strategic plans and technical side of building a website, apps and other web platforms for the campaign, most of which fell short to the Obama organization eight years ago.

PHOTO: Google web developer blog

The two different starting points yield very different narratives.

Big picture, polling on Clinton yields one overarching finding: As the 2016 campaign gets underway, she’s being viewed as a political figure once again, which is being reflected in her tempered numbers compared to a few years ago when she was a very popular secretary of state. And this much is true in both polls: A significant share of Americans have an unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton, and a sizable number have questions about her honesty.

But remember when reading poll analyses, change over time in any individual poll is completely dependent on when the questions were last asked.