RUSH: Here is Bob in Quincy, Illinois. You’re up, sir, and I’m glad you waited. Hello.
CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. Please let me introduce a bit of nuance into Trump and the so-called Wilder Effect.
RUSH: Sure.
CALLER: So, if Trump wins Republican primaries by a greater margin than predicted in the polls, might that affect in the general election be augmented when you introduce Democrats to the mix? And I’m suggesting that Democrats may be willing to vote for Trump; certainly many will. But they will be more unwilling to admit it to a pollster, thus augmenting the effect in the general election. So are we looking at 1980?
RUSH: You are hoping that what we could be on the cusp here is a Donald Trump 47-state landslide? That’s what you’re thinking is lurking here in the future?
CALLER: Well, it’s possible. If he can beat Republicans by more than what people think, then I think it stands to reason… There’s stronger candidates in the Republican field. I mean, he has to beat Cruz. He has to beat Rubio and others. Ben Carson. They’re stronger than Hillary Clinton, or Bernie, so I think if he gets through this Republican thing, it could be 49. I mean, I don’t know.
RUSH: Well, he’s gotta overcome those unfavorables. Sixty percent unfavorable. And you are counting on this wave of support to maybe soften the unfavorable. But nobody knows ’til the votes are cast because you’re looking at a version of the Wilder Effect. I have to run. But I’ll expand on this theory in mere moments.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: What our last caller was trying to point out, he was saying that — and he’s obviously a Trumpster. So he’s speculating. He’s hoping. He’s hoping that Trump wins big. He’s hoping that Trump wins by bigger margins than whatever were predicted by the polling here in Iowa, then in New Hampshire. And if the polls are right, the guy may get his wish. But we won’t know for a while. So his theory is — his hope is — that, if that happens, if Trump ends up scorching the field, that that is going to bring a bunch of Democrats over.
Because everybody wants to be part of what’s happening now. Everybody wants to be part of what’s winning. But his theory is the Democrats will never say so, in polling. He said no… ‘Cause the Democrats, the voters are gonna assume that all pollsters are Democrats, so when they call or their computers call and ask ’em for their preference, they’re all gonna say Hillary or Bernie, whoever the Democrat nominee is. But his theory is that if Trump wins big, that that’s gonna automatically attract a lot of Democrats.
But we won’t know it until Election Day, just like we didn’t know that Ronaldus Magnus was gonna win in a landslide really until that night. Do you realize the last serious, credible poll one week before the election had Jimmy Carter winning by eight in 1980? And that election was over before the polls closed in California. Jimmy Carter conceded. He said, “No mas, no mas.” Before they’d even shut down in California. That was a 47-state landslide, and then 49 states in 1984, running against Walter Mondale.
But nobody knows that, of course. That was just a Trump voter speculating and hoping.