As a general matter, people who write about or strategize about politics greatly overestimate our collective ability to shape how an election will play out, the extent to which clever ideas can pivot the course of an election in any new direction. We’re more small sailboats on a big ocean than some kind of latter-day Neptune actually changing the waves or the wind. But, all that said, Trump may have handed a unique card for Democrats to play against Republican candidates, especially those bordering Canada, which include key states like Michigan, Alaska, and Maine, as well as states with strong trade dependencies like Iowa and Ohio. This part requires little explanation. Heading into an ugly midterm cycle with one damaging and needless war underway, it boggles the mind that he thinks it’s a good idea to start a trade war with America’s second-largest trading partner. Trade wars raise prices; and the cost of living is the largest single issue in the election.

But there’s an additional dimension to the politics.

I wanted to follow up on my post about Pat Ruffini’s deep dive about the accuracy of Senate race polling in recent cycles and whether they’ve overstated Democrats’ strength. But since I wrote that post, I’ve also gotten a few emails from friends and TPM readers about polling generally. So I wanted to combine all of this together into some general comments on polling and whether we should care about it at all.

In the wake of the big apparent polling misses in Michigan and Wisconsin, we’re seeing another wave of discussion about a purported “crisis” in polling and what we should collectively do about it or what the polling industry should do about it. Mostly, the answer is there is no “crisis” — at least in the sense of one that any of us should care about as some problem for American democracy or elections or anything else. If you’re in the polling business, it may well be a problem. But if you’re not, who cares? There might be a crisis in Swiss cheese marketing too. But if I’m not a cheese monger, why do I care?