From TPM Reader LS …

I had a different response to Trump’s words. At first it was visceral disgust mixed with fear. Then the memories kicked in. This is the kind of talk the man who raped me said.  It was some version of that I was going to like the experience, which was deeply untrue. And that I wouldn’t tell anyone if I knew what was best for me. 

Our friend Rick Perlstein had a good piece in The American Prospect yesterday about polling and its pitfalls — both its pitfalls as a practice, with its evolving, imperfect methodologies, but also as something we political junkies obsess over. The gist of his argument is contained in the subhed: “Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?” I don’t think Rick quite sustains that claim fully. I’m not sure he’s actually trying to. But as is the case with many articles, its interesting enough for the points and the bits of history he shares along the way. The gist is that new methodologies keep working great until they suddenly don’t, and then it’s on to some new methodology. Then there’s the fact that for decades pollsters always seemed to stop polling too soon and miss big shifts at the ends of campaigns.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss recent polling, the competitive Senate races and various oddities happening in the Cornhusker State.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

When New York Mayor Eric Adams was elected in 2021, I told a number of people that I thought he’d either be a great mayor or end up getting indicted for something. A baseball player who bats .500 is a god. So I’m feeling reasonably good about this prediction. I tried to see whether I’d written this down somewhere. Back in December 2021 I wrote on Twitter that “I think there’s a lot about Adams that is really what the city needs. Most of the things. But also concerned that he’ll get indicted for something.” A month later I explained the basis of my largely misguided bullishness on Adams. “For clarity, I’m not cheering anything from the last three days. I think a mayor rooted in the politics of the city’s black middle class (which is Adams’ base) is better for the city today than rooted in the politics of liberals in Manhattan and Brooklyn.”

This general point I still believe.