There is no definitive difference between a push poll and a poll that is not a push poll. There are shameless push polls, but objective published polls are about as likely as objective public news; I'd need an existence proof for either. Published polls on how people say they will vote have virtually no utility for the vast majority of individuals. A small minority of individuals may need to plan for contingencies based on the likelihood of a particular result, but that utility drops drastically the shorter the planning window gets (i.e. the closer the vote is), which might be somewhat offset by a possibly greater accuracy. But instead of slowing as the date arrives, the polls get faster and faster.
However, the utility of a "push" poll goes up closer to the vote, because voters will have less opportunity to review and correct misimpressions that the poll gave them. Hence the time between polls goes to zero as time to the vote approaches zero, and why some governments feel that they have to step in to create a prohibited window before a vote.
Also, a traditional definition of a "push" poll is one that is meant to change the minds of the people taking the poll, but more effective in many circumstances, and definitely more common (because it is cheaper) is a poll which uses strange phrasing to get results that can be reported (after being carefully framed in a press release) in a way that implies far greater support or opposition for something that would be indicated by a more direct questioning. The fact that every vote is to some extent a Keynesian beauty contest, even if that's simply because people are convinced by ad populum and question themselves if they see that the crowd disagrees with them, means that even an "objective" poll would push.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but you seem to misunderstand why election polls are reported, and reported more frequently the closer it gets to Election Day.
Tracking polls aren’t for informing some secret cabal, or even to inform. It’s the horse race. It sells papers. But there’s nothing biased about “Is the country on the right track, or the wrong track?”
However, the utility of a "push" poll goes up closer to the vote, because voters will have less opportunity to review and correct misimpressions that the poll gave them. Hence the time between polls goes to zero as time to the vote approaches zero, and why some governments feel that they have to step in to create a prohibited window before a vote.
Also, a traditional definition of a "push" poll is one that is meant to change the minds of the people taking the poll, but more effective in many circumstances, and definitely more common (because it is cheaper) is a poll which uses strange phrasing to get results that can be reported (after being carefully framed in a press release) in a way that implies far greater support or opposition for something that would be indicated by a more direct questioning. The fact that every vote is to some extent a Keynesian beauty contest, even if that's simply because people are convinced by ad populum and question themselves if they see that the crowd disagrees with them, means that even an "objective" poll would push.