Bill Scher at Washington Monthly is sounding the alarm from the establishment-liberal corner of the Democratic Party on an issue that is likely to plague both parties and election journalism going forward. Tracking the way in which dubious polls from activist groups with an agenda shaped coverage of Graham Platner and may be doing the same for Abdul El-Sayed, while the number of polls from relatively professional and/or disinterested media organizations and universities declines, Scher concludes:

Pumping out favorable polls at a sensitive phase of the campaign—especially in the absence of independent polls produced by well-read media outlets—warped perceptions about Platner’s political durability and made it harder for skeptics to warn about the possibility of bigger scandalous shoes dropping. . . . Ginning up favorable polls is something any campaign or sympathetic group can, in theory, do, regardless of party or ideology. . . . As of late, the polling push seems to be more heartily embraced by left-wing insurgents, understandably so. Since such candidates tend to face initial concerns about electability, injecting favorable polls into the discourse can help mitigate those concerns. The charitable case for it is that it helps draw attention to outsiders with great potential who might be unfairly overlooked. The downside risk is that it creates an unwarranted perception of strength. . . .

What’s missing from this picture is credible polling from respected media outlets. . . . For a good long while, many people groused about poll-driven “horse race” coverage from mainstream media outlets that ignored policy substance and left news consumers poorly informed. And as polling is always an inexact science, media outlets took it on the chin whenever a poll they sponsored was off the mark. But the decline of professional polling from media outlets leaves us more vulnerable to spin polls from campaigns. That vulnerability was cannily seized by the Platner campaign, to the detriment of Maine Democrats who perhaps wanted to believe a little too much what the numbers seemed to say.

If polls didn’t affect what they claim to observe, this would be a small problem confined to those of us who read their entrails to forecast events. But they drive not only coverage but also donations and voter behavior. So, it matters if they’re wrong.