Recently a reader asked me why I focus on polls rather than political betting markets for insights into the race and whether I thought polls were more reliable. I was honestly baffled by the question. To me this was like asking whether I thought a scale was a better way to measure weight than dead reckoning. And I’m not trying to be critical of the reader, who is probably reading this. I gave him my answer and we had a good exchange. But I thought it was worth sharing my thoughts on this question.
My analogy about scales is certainly imperfect in a number of ways, just as polls are imperfect. Indeed, it isn’t even really a question of which is better. The most important thing to understand about the relationship between polls and political betting markets is that the latter is largely downstream of the former. Most bets in political betting markets are driven by people looking at polls and betting accordingly. So by definition they can’t be better. Because the bets are derived from the polls.
But there are a few other points that are worth noting and which are worth considering in a broader context.
I heard from a reader yesterday who saw one of the country’s top political journalists give a public presentation about the race. The run-down I got of that event crystallized something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to over the last few months and writing about here and there. At the elite level, political journalists have a basic contempt for Democrats. It’s not even very concealed because in a way it’s hardly even recognized as such. This continues to be the case despite the fact that most of the people I’m talking about, if they vote, probably vote for Democrats. They are socio-economically and culturally, if not always ideologically, the peers of Democrats. We often confuse cosmopolitan social values for liberalism. If anything, this basic pattern has become more the case over the last decade. These people are highly educated. They are affluent. They are the creatures of the major cities.
Are they secretly rooting for Donald Trump? Hardly. Or at least not in the great majority of the cases. Trump is a tiger on the savanna, dangerous but also fascinating and above all alien. That’s why the notorious rustbelt diner interview stories were and are such a staple. They’re safaris. It defines the coverage, and in ways seldom helpful for Democrats in electoral political terms.
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh talk about the campaign vibes, Trump’s misinformation campaign around recent hurricanes and the beginning of the Supreme Court term.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Before social media foreign subversion became a staple of partisan politics in the U.S., the first journalist to write about the topic for a big mainstream audience was Adrian Chen. He published a piece in The New York Times Magazine in June 2015. It was called “The Agency” and it told the story of the Internet Research Agency, the government-linked Russian troll farm which would become a centerpiece of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and the long investigations that came after it. The IRA was owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner Group whose star would continue to rise over the next decade until he mounted an ill-fated rebellion against Moscow and later died “mysteriously” in a plane crash.
I mentioned on Monday that the DeSantis administration in Florida is literally threatening criminal prosecution of TV stations that run pro-abortion rights ads for the state ballot initiative to turn back Florida’s six week abortion ban. This piece in the Post largely repeats those earlier reports. But it does confirm that an additional station in Gainesville got the same threat letters. Presumably others have as well.
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For History: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, since she joined the Court, has taken on a singular, likely uncomfortable mantle. She’s often the only one willing to relitigate fights already lost to the conservative supermajority. Often, she does this alone, either out loud or in writing.
Welcome: Josh Kovensky weighs in the ways in which the Trump campaign has turned the 2020 crusade against ballot access on its head in the last week.
Georgia GOPers Join The Pushback Against MAGA-Dominated State Election Board: Khaya Himmelman unpacks the latest news on the rogue Georgia Election Board: Georgia Republicans are joining Democrats in trying to invalidate the last minute, Trumpian rules the board has passed in recent weeks that will make it easier to delay election certification in the state.
You Know The Disinfo Is Bad When DeSantis Feels Compelled To Weigh In: Emine Yücel digs in on why “bros” aren’t supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
Words Of Wisdom: Emine Yücel also explains why the conspiracy theories surrounding recent hurricanes have gotten so bad that even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis feels compelled to dispel disinfo.
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