Poll Hub

What You See Now May Be What You Get on Election Day

Episode Summary

Labor Day marks the traditional start of the election campaign season but for all the debates and October surprises, history shows very little actually changes between now and then. Gender has become the latest culture war issue, but experts say what some think is a crisis is actually vanishingly rare and is likely just a scare tactic. And, we wrap with a fun fact about reality TV. Would you, or wouldn't you?

Episode Notes

Public opinion polls taken just after Labor Day in presidential election years are, perhaps surprisingly, VERY accurate in predicting the winner on Election Day...of the popular vote at least. So, despite a very noisy and busy two month stretch to the finish, the history of polling indicates what we see now is most likely what we'll get in November.

Then, gender dysphoria is on the rise among Americans, but the treatments for it are hotly debated. Some politicians advocate cutting off access to these treatments for people under 18 -- and a few advocate cutting it off for everyone -- but what do Americans think? And, how much of what we hear is factual versus scare tactics? We talk with Dr. Jack Drescher of Columbia University.

Finally, we look at two questions from the 2000s about reality TV. And in a rare moment, all four co-hosts agree on our answer!