RUSH: Let’s look at Florida, by the way. “Democrats…” this is a Politico story: “Democrats Widen Lead Over GOP in Florida Early Votes — But ‘X-factor’ obscures whether Clinton has a firm lead over Trump.” So why run this story? “Democrats Widen Lead Over GOP in Florida Early Votes — But ‘X-factor'” means they don’t know. “But [something we don’t know] obscures whether Clinton has a firm lead over Trump — [T]he sheer number of new voters and independents makes it tougher than ever for experts to say whether Hillary Clinton has a clear advantage over Donald Trump in [Florida].”
Well, interestingly, Drudge has just posted what he says is an exclusive. The upshot of it is that Donald Trump is outperforming Mitt Romney by 130,000 in early voting. This has double negatives in it, so bear with me. “Data obtained by the Drudge Report shows presidential underdog Donald Trump outperforming Republican 2012 election results in Florida. Mitt Romney went into Election Day down 161,000 in absentee ballots and early voting. He ended up losing the state by 74,000.
“This time, in a dramatic surprise twist, Trump is only down 32,500!” Remember, Romney was down 161,000. “And Republicans tend to outvote Democrats on Election Day in Florida,” and, “a late poll showed Trump nearing 50% in the Sunshine State,” in Florida. So the important thing here is Trump is doing vastly better in early voting than Romney did and that there’s every reason to believe that among people who vote on Election Day in Florida, Republicans vastly outnumber the Democrats. It’s in play.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: In Florida… Obama won in 2012 in Florida by less than 1%. He had 0.9% of the vote. And there is much more activity in Florida this time around. And Trump is exciting Republican turnout far greater than Romney did. Now, let me run through these Drudge numbers again, because when you hear them… Numbers being read to you can be confusing just by themselves, but this contains two bits of news that both seem to be negative, and yet Drudge is reporting this as a positive. So let me break this down for you.
Drudge is claiming that this is exclusive data that he has been given, and it shows Trump outperforming Mitt Romney in early voting and absentee voting. Romney, of course, ran in 2012. Romney went into Election Day 2012 down 161,000 in absentee ballots and early voting. Now, what that means is that 161,000 more votes had occurred for Obama than Romney in early voting and absentee. And when you tabulate the actual Election Day voting and add to it with the absentee and early voting, Romney ended up losing the state by 74,000 or about 1%.
And if you add those things together then what you end up with is a Trump win in Florida. That’s the point of this. Now, there’s a CBS/YouGov poll, and it is a poll of those who plan on voting on Election Day. This is why the Drudge number is interesting. In Ohio, a poll of people who plan on voting tomorrow, Trump 49%, Clinton 41%. That’s plus eight among Election Day voters. In Florida (this is astounding), the CBS poll: Among people who plan on voting on Election Day, Trump 51%, Clinton 35%.
That is Trump plus 16 in a CBS poll of people that are going to vote tomorrow. So you take that poll and projection and you measure it against what is known about the early voting and absentees and you find out that Trump has much more support in the early voting and absentees than Romney ever did, even though he’s still down 32,000 votes. If you add that increase over Romney to this poll, it shows a Trump win of Florida, and probably a Trump win in Ohio.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, a caveat on this early voting. The only way anybody knows is party ID. When it says here that there are 32,500 more Democrats who voted early voting in Florida and that they’ve all voted for Hillary. We don’t know that. We just know party ID. We don’t know how many Democrats actually voted for Trump. We don’t know how many Republicans for Hillary. All we have is party ID. So it’s incomplete data. We’ll take it. I mean, it’s the day before the election.
CALLER: How are you, sir?
RUSH: Good. Thank you.
CALLER: Honored to be on your program and proud to say I’ve been a fan since the late ’80s when I used to sit in a lifeguard stand and debate with some liberal types.
RUSH: See, see this guy has been here for 28 years, folks, and most everybody in this audience has. And I cannot tell you how I am dazzled by that and appreciate that. I cannot express it. It’s overwhelming to me. But tell me about the rally, Mark, because you were there. And I’ve got some sound bites coming up from it. Apparently it was huge.
CALLER: Yes, it was. It was at a local arena called Robarts Arena. Jam-packed, standing room only, and overflow outside, speakers outside. The whole atmosphere was a very positive, festive atmosphere, everybody getting along. People lined up for blocks as you were mentioning earlier and parking everywhere. But everything went well. I’m just retired as a law enforcement officer and, of course, got to see how everything was working well with the crowd and traffic and everything. Everybody was very positive to work with.
RUSH: Mark, let me ask you a quick question. How long has this rally been scheduled? How long have you known Trump was going to be in Sarasota today?
CALLER: I just learned about it two days ago. So very quickly, all of a sudden it came up.
RUSH: It’s a point that I wanted to make. Some of these Trump rallies are announced five and six hours before they happen. And they still draw — I don’t know about Sarasota — but some of these rallies are put together on the fly five or six hours in advance and they still draw 10,000 people and long lines like this.