#66: Are the polls making you freak out?

We’re back in the soundbooth--no noisy hotel hallways this time! And check us out this weekend on The Big Listen--a podcast (and actual WAMU broadcast) about podcasts. We really enjoyed talking to Lauren. As always, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.   Poll of the week: get the government out of our bathrooms Voters in this recent NBC/WSJ poll show many don’t want any type of government in their bathrooms--state law or federal intervention. And very high don’t knows on how people feel about transgender use of bathrooms.   Should you panic? Uh, no? Last week when we discussed the effect Sanders might be having on Clinton’s general election performance, we didn’t have a lot of data. But there have been a few more polls this week suggesting Democrats may in fact be slightly more unified than they were this time in 2008. The new CBS/NYT poll shows far more Republicans are divided than Dems, and far more feel Clinton can unite party than Republicans say the same about Trump. And more Sanders voters say they’d vote for Clinton than Clinton voters said they’d vote for Obama same time in 2008.Greg Sargent from the Washington Post has a good writeup on this as well. Gallup also shows both Clinton and Sanders voters don’t think Sanders hurting their party.   Perhaps the dialogue among Democratic insiders is different from that around Democratic voters. This wouldn’t be unlike how Republican insiders have felt much more strongly about Trump than have Republican voters, even if, as Gallup shows, Republicans are favorable, but still not totally pleased with their nominee.   Meanwhile, everyone hates everyone The latest wave of polls suggests there are lots of “nose-holders” and Trump and Clinton are tied. Can this be real? Can we trust the polls this far out? Many pollsters and poll-watchers have weighed in. The latest NBC/WSJ poll says Clinton and Trump are currently the least popular front-runners in the poll’s history. The ABC/WSJ poll said the same.   There are also some new subgroup polls in the mix, such as this recent breakout of Latinos, and this new poll of the AAPI community.   To sort through the onslaught of data, Norm Ornstein & Alan Abramowitz write  in NYT to “stop the insanity” Susan Powter-style, and Jon Cohen and Mark Blumenthal of Survey Monkey respond. Mark and Jon raise an important point--we need to be focusing on *why* Trump is doing well, and less on whether he is tied, or up a few, or down a few, as in this recent Vox dialogue with pollsters.   Ask a millennial! Millennials want marriage & kids, but maybe not at the same time? As our resident Millennial, Kristen (author of “The Selfie Vote”) is not surprised. But the number of Millennials living with their parents--well, that’s pretty high. And don’t get us started on Europe. This year’s summer song. Billboard has a poll of the top song of summer. We don’t know if the answers will surprise you, but they surprise Margie, who clearly needs to get out more. And if you want to be part of Kristen’s musical tastes forever, you have a few more months.     Key findings: People want the government out of their bathrooms. Seems reasonable enough. Meanwhile--the 2016 race is the opposite of reasonable. But the polling is kind of consistent--so why is that what everyone is freaking out about? I’m going to freak out if my children are living with me when they’re 35. How did Justin Bieber come up again in this podcast? We can’t even blame Kristen--we blame the polls.

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