You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full episode for August 18, 2026. 

We open by taking a hard look at the polling industry ahead of the 2026 midterms, breaking down Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini's analysis of 3,000 Senate polls over four election cycles, which found an average Democratic-leaning error of 3.7 points and Democrats overstated in 73% of surveys. We debate whether that means blanket-adjusting every poll number, or whether turnout, candidate quality, and a summer electorate that isn't paying attention yet make historical error rates a poor guide to any single race, using the Texas Senate matchup between Ken Paxton and James Tallarico as our test case.

From there we run through our Top 3 stories you need to know: an indictment of 17 Iranian nationals tied to the Mabna Institute for a sweeping hacking campaign against U.S. universities, private companies, and government agencies; an arrest warrant issued for former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein after she skipped a court hearing tied to an alleged assault on a police officer; and a guilty plea from a Massachusetts man who identifies as transgender after bringing Molotov cocktails to the Capitol during Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's confirmation hearing. We also dig into the National Association of Black Journalists giving ESPN's Stephen A. Smith a thumbs-down rating for refusing to stay in his ideological lane, and a former Senator John Cornyn staffer's jump to the Tallarico campaign, which we read as a sign of where the polls and the money are pointing rather than any real change in conviction.

In American Mamas, Teri Netterville reflects on the death of actress Hayden Panettiere, tracing her rise as a child star through a mother who treated her as a meal ticket, an abusive relationship, drug struggles, and the broader pattern of young Hollywood stars who are chewed up by the industry around them.

We Dig Deep into a resurgence of flea-borne typhus in Los Angeles, connecting record case numbers to the city's homelessness policies and a 2020 California law that restricted the most effective rat poisons to protect wildlife. We also cover a new Census Bureau review comparing 2020 voter rolls to citizenship data, which found more than 24,000 confirmed non-citizen votes out of an initial 128 million reviewed, with 32 million more ballots still to be checked, and what President Trump's reaction to that number could mean going forward.

For our Bright Spot, we look at a new report showing New York City's congestion pricing hasn't actually improved air quality, then turn to a Washington, D.C. experiment coating streets in light-reflective paint to cool down urban heat islands. We say, "what" to a Minneapolis public school district reportedly handing out free backpacks and school supplies exclusively to American Indian students. And we close with a Moment of Whoa as Jason Burns secretly trains for two weeks to surprise his girlfriend Emma Kessler at the starting line of her first half marathon, running all 13.1 miles by her side.

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