INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Polls on big political races always produce plenty of takes on what the results mean.

Take a WISH-TV Indiana poll on the 2008 Indiana governor's race released last week. Democrats said the numbers showed that Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels was in danger, or at least vulnerable, in his quest to get re-elected next year.

The Daniels' campaign said the results showed he was in fine shape. Daniels himself seemed unfazed one way or the other. Two political scientists had their own thoughts, agreeing on at least one: With the May 2008 primary months away and the general election that November even farther off, it's early.

The statewide telephone poll of 800 registered, likely voters conducted Sept. 10-14 had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

When asked to rate Daniels' performance, 8 percent said excellent, 37 percent said good, 34 percent said "only fair," 13 percent said poor, and 8 percent were undecided.

When asked if the election were held today, 39 percent said they would vote to re-elect Daniels, 21 percent said they would consider another candidate, 37 percent said they would vote to replace him, and 3 percent weren't sure.

In a subgroup of 400 likely Democratic primary voters, 46 percent said they favored former U.S. Rep. Jill Long Thompson for the Democratic nomination, 16 percent were for state Senate Minority Leader Richard Young and 10 percent would vote for Jim Schellinger, president of an Indianapolis architecture firm.

When asked if the general election was between Daniels and Long Thompson, Daniels led 46 percent to 38 percent with the rest undecided.

Long Thompson pointed to her lead among Democratic candidates and noted that she trailed Daniels by only eight points even though she announced her campaign just 10 weeks ago.

Schellinger's campaign said that even though he had never sought office, his support among Democrats was in double digits (10 percent). They also said as the campaign begins in earnest, more people will get to know and embrace him.

The Long Thompson and Schellinger campaigns also pointed to the 39 percent re-elect number for Daniels. Long's camp called that "most alarming," and Schellinger's said it was exceptionally low for an incumbent.

Democrats also considered "excellent and good" to be positive job approval ratings, and "only fair and poor" to be negative. If that's so, Daniels positive job rating was below 50 percent. The Daniels campaign considered excellent, good and fair to be positive, and if that's so, eight out of 10 approved his performance.

Robert Dion, a professor of American politics at the University of Evansville, said one could view those ratings either way. But he did suggest that the results show that Daniels "has some work to do."

"Mitch Daniels might view the results as a wake-up call, and Democrats can look at it as an opportunity, that it's not an unwinnable race, but you wouldn't want to overstate the results," Dion said.

Dion said Daniels likely stirred some opposition by his aggressive style of seeking big changes, such as leasing the Indiana Toll Road and getting statewide daylight saving time enacted. Daniels said he didn't put much stock in polls but acknowledged that there is a faction of Hoosiers who don't like change.

Dion and Brian Vargus — a political science professor at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis who used to conduct political polls there — both noted that Long Thompson enjoyed the most name recognition among Democrats so far. She was a congresswoman in northeastern Indiana from 1989 to 1995, and was in a high-profile congressional race in northern Indiana in 2002.

Dion said he found it kind of comical for the Schellinger campaign to play up 10 percent support as being in double digits, and said he needed to boost his name ID. But he noted that Schellinger is being backed by some big labor organizations and that he had an inside track on some major donors.

Vargus said it was too early to read anything into the poll.

"What they say now doesn't necessarily mean anything," he said. "People change their minds. One-third of voters make up their mind in the last week of an election. And how many things might change," before then?

Some things are sure to change, and there will be more polls. And everyone will have their own takes on the results.