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 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.

When I asked to see the text messages you’re receiving, I was mainly interested in the presidential race and even more those coming from the right. I’m also interested in ones from the Harris side and from the big Senate races. It’s a fascinating and illuminating prism into an often subterranean part of the campaigns, and ones that can fly under the radar. But I was particularly struck by this text TPM Reader BG received in New York City.

It identifies itself as coming from a group called “Turn Left,” which is associated with Richard Ojeda from West Virginia. Ojeda’s name isn’t a household word. But you may remember him. He came to a fame as a West Virginia Democrat who voted for Trump in 2016 and then turned against him. He gained a lot of attention in 2018 and 2020 as a candidate who could give Democrats purchase in rural, Trumpy parts of the country. This ad combines the hurricane misinformation of the moment — $750 checks to storm survivors — with pretty florid and traditional anti-Semitic tropes about a “genocidal AIPAC” that has its “claws so deep in Washington” that it “cuts checks to bomb civilians while your neighbors drown.”

“This is what happens,” it continues, “when genocidal groups like AIPAC buy off our leaders. When the same corrupt politicians line their pockets with blood money, then look us in the eye and tell us there’s nothing left for healthcare, education or disaster relief.”

Full text after the jump …

A lot of you are getting campaign text messages. If they’re pitches for money, those aren’t as important. But I’m particularly interested in ones that are putting nuggets of news in front of you to, in theory, drive your vote for one or the other candidate. If you’re getting these and haven’t requested they stop, I’m very interested to see them. Ideally, if you can screenshot them and send them to me at the regular TPM email, great. If you can cut and paste, that works too. Let me know what you’re seeing. And if possible, let me know where you’re getting them geographically and anything general about your political profile that might help me understand what kind of people the campaigns are sending them to.

Florida has become the state where elements of a future, second-Trump-presidency America already come into view. We’re seeing some of these things happening right now in Florida. The example I’m about to share with you legitimately shocked me. (That’s a high bar.) It’s about the pro-choice ballot amendment which would restore Roe protections in Florida if it gets the support of 60% of voters. As in most other states, getting to 50% isn’t that difficult. 60% is much harder. To head off even the chance that the ballot initiative might hit that challenging high bar, the state of Florida is already spending a substantial amount of tax payer dollars campaigning against the initiative. Now we learn that the state is quite literally threatening jail time for the employees of stations that agree to run one of the ads for the pro-choice amendment. You heard that right — not sue under some claim of defamation but actual criminal charges.

When I first read this I thought it was one of those civil suits. Opposing campaigns will occasionally do this to scare stations out of running their opponent’s ads. I’ve never seen a state government do it, but particularly litigious campaigns occasionally do. But it’s not a civil suit. They’re threatening criminal charges.

A few fact points to explain what’s going on.