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........

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