RUSH: Folks, I have to tell you, I’m sitting here, I’m feeling odd because normally whenever we get together I am certain about most everything I tell you. When I have an opinion on something, it’s an opinion and it’s rock solid and I firmly believe it 100%. I’m not used to not knowing. I’m not used to not being confident of what I think. I don’t know how this is gonna turn out. I don’t know what to make of these polls. I am factoring everything you’re factoring. I look at everything you look at. And I don’t know.
For example, you have seen the stories today and through the weekend that the Democrats think they have this already wrapped up, that Trump is already toast. And so what they’re doing, they’re going into red states. Hillary campaign, they’re going to Texas, they’re going to Utah, they’re going to Georgia, they’re going all these places that they never have a prayer, and they’re trying to win back the Senate, and they’re trying to win back the House.
I don’t care what network you watch, maybe with Fox exempted, although certain places at Fox you’ll find the same sentiment. It’s over. And they all cite these polls. They all cite the polls that show Hillary up 10 to 12 points. And even take the low point at 10, I just saw somebody on CNN, a conservative Republican say, “At 10 points with two weeks it’s over, there’s no way you can reverse that, it’s history.”
So they all believe the polls. In fact, their belief in the polls is biblical. I think these people have a greater confidence and faith in the polls than they do in the Bible. So it’s over. And, furthermore, to show you just how over it is, the Democrats are actually now in red states where Trump may win those states, but they’re in there and they’re working down the ballot and they’re gonna win back the House, they’re gonna win back the Senate, and Chuck-U Schumer is gonna end up a majority leader in the Senate.
And you Republicans, you are toast, do you understand? You Republicans, it’s toast, and you Republicans had better start doing your postmortems right now, and you had better starting figuring out why this happened. You lost this because you saw to it that Trump was nominated, and if you weren’t for Trump, you better find out who made it possible for Trump to be nominated, and you better do something about those people.
Well, that just happens to be me, in their opinion. I still haven’t endorsed anybody in this campaign, are you aware of that? I still haven’t! I may be the last person in the country that hasn’t endorsed somebody. At this point it’s meaningless. The Republicans have already conceited, too. They’re already starting to form their circular firing squad and starting to aim their weapons at the people they think are responsible for this. And of course it’s not them. Republicans, no, no, no, no, they have nothing to do with it.
Now, see, all this talk that I’m engaging in right now, it assumes that Trump’s toast. It assumes that Trump’s history. It assumes that Trump doesn’t have a prayer. It’s based on the fact that Trump never did have a prayer. But then there’s other data. Trump rallies are out of sight. They have more excitement than the combined excitement of Hillary Clinton all year. They have more attendance. No matter where they are, people drive hundreds of miles to attend them. They are happy. They are upbeat. They are optimistic. Wherever Trump goes, blue state, red state, doesn’t matter where he goes.
By the same token, wherever Hillary goes or any of her surrogates, be it Tim Kaine or Obama or Algore, nobody shows up. There isn’t any excitement. You can’t find any excitement for the Clinton campaign even in the media other than from the media. But you can’t find average American voters who are all excited for Hillary Clinton like you can find beaucoup American voters who are all excited for Donald Trump.
Then you have the LA Times poll that shows Trump up by one, maybe tied now. Then you have the Investor’s Business Daily today which has Trump up two. Now, let’s look at that poll. That poll got it exactly right in 2012. Romney lost by 3.8 points, and it was the IDB poll, IDB/Tipps that got it exactly right. Well, their poll has Trump up by two, and here is their sample. They sampled 282 Democrats, 226 Republicans, and 259 independents. They oversampled Democrats by two and a half percent, which is about right, according to party registration and turnout.
Oversampling Democrats by 2.8, 2.5 is pretty correct.
But the ABC poll — ready for this? Democrats sampled 36%, again in the IDB poll, it was — well, I don’t know what the percentages are, but it’s 282 Democrats, 226 Republicans. So it’s relatively 30-30-30 with fluctuations here and there, the IDB poll. ABC, 36% Democrat, 27% Republican, 31% independent. So by the time you add this up, 67% of the sample in the ABC poll is not Republican. Only 27% is. And that produces a result of Hillary up 12. And they’re all running with the ABC poll today, the ABC tracking poll.
So you mix all these together, IDB got it right in 2012. Their sample seems much more realistic, and it’s much more consistent. You have the Rasmussen poll that’s basically showing Trump up one, LA Times/USC poll is even, that’s had Trump up the last three weeks a point, point and a half. So you have three polls that show this race tied or at two points plus Trump, and all of the others have it Hillary in double digits. Then you factor what you see and Hillary double digits doesn’t make any sense. So you start asking yourself, well, does the Drive-By Media have that much influence? Are there that many people out there who are going to vote, despite the stories we have on her high disapproval numbers are almost up where Trump’s are.
We had a Zero Hedge story on how the ABC poll gave Hillary a 12-point advantage, and this is a story about the sampling: 36 Democrat, 27 Republican, 31 Independent. Since 1992, according to Pew Research Center, Democrats have never enjoyed a nine-point registration gap, despite the people at ABC and the Washington Post somehow convincing themselves it was a reasonable margin. So in this ABC/Washington Post poll, as a 9% advantage in turnout for Democrats, projected turnout, added to whatever the voter registration increases are. But according to Pew, the Democrats have never had a nine point registration gap. So, again, Zero Hedge thinks that we’re all being scammed.
From the Washington Post: 60% of Republicans believe illegal immigrants vote. Forty-three percent believe people vote using dead people’s names. This is a story that is designed to dispirit and depress and make Republican voters look like fruitcakes and nutcases. “Sixty percent of Republicans believe illegal immigrants vote. Forty-three percent believe people vote using dead people’s names.” They do! It’s been documented! It’s been discovered! It’s been learned! But who do you think the source for a story like this is? Mr. Snerdley, who do you think?
Let me read to you what it says here, the opening paragraph. “The 2016 presidential campaign has become a referendum on the process of American electoral democracy itself. Republican candidate Donald Trump’s baseless claims of a ‘rigged’ election and his refusal to promise to accept the outcome of November’s vote have focused renewed attention on allegations of voter fraud.”
Well, the Democrats routinely accuse us of voter fraud. John Kerry did in 2004 in Ohio. We don’t need to recount what happened in Florida in 2000. Obama himself has talked about voter fraud. Routinely the Democrats mention it and complain about it and whine and moan about it. But as far as the Washington Post is concerned, it’s only Republicans that do this. But it’s a story designed to paint Republicans as kooks and it’s designed to make everybody think the Republicans are not worth listening to.
I’ve never seen a coordinated media assault like this, and I know exactly why it’s happening. This is the establishment circling the wagons. This is the Washington elites, both parties, media, every ancillary group and individual, linking arms and forming their union here to oppose and stop any outsider from having any impact on this election or Washington whatsoever. And this is exactly what it looks like. Now, people have weighed in on the phones on this, they’re on hold and I’ve gotta get to them here.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Lennie from California. Great to have. You’re up first today. Hi, Lennie.
CALLER: Hi, thank you, Rush. I want to make a comment. I want to disagree with you about your prediction that the polls will tighten, and I’d like to, if I could, at the very end just add a reason for that’s based on the two rallies that I’ve attended. First of all, I think this election is way different than 2012 for the press and for the pollsters. They’ll willing to keep these numbers at 10 or 12% because it’s just too important. They’re not gonna let it drop to six just so they can say we were closest. So that’s where I disagree with you. And I think, so that we don’t feel like we’re deluding ourselves, when I’ve been to the two rallies, the rallies I’ve been to held 20, 25,000 people, and it was an all-day event. I mean, I stood in line for an hour-and-a-half in the sun to get into the venue three hours and a half —
RUSH: Wait a minute. You said not deluded. Are you talking about Trump rallies here?
RUSH: Well, that makes sense. I mean, the pollsters are part of the establishment, and their lifeblood depends on the establishment remaining dominant and in the winner column and so forth and shellacking all oncomers. So I can understand your theory. That they’re really throwing everything at it this year, to hell with looking accurate, to hell with showing it closer, just gonna go the whole way trying to influence every voter we can right up to Election Day. To hell with what’s right, we’re just gonna run this stuff as it is to try to suppress turnout, depress people. All these stories about Hillary and the Democrats going to red states to win the House and Senate, what do you think of those?
CALLER: Well, I can see maybe they’re delusional, but I’m telling you what, this crazy excitement at these rallies, this is not what you see in a landslide where somebody gets beat by 10 or 12 points. That’s just not possible. Maybe they’re trying to reinforce it for the pollsters. I don’t know what their intent is, but they’re not the smartest people. I think they’re gonna be in for a surprise.
RUSH: Look, I actually think you could have a point here in that the polls are part of the establishment, and this is all-in, everybody in the establishment’s all-in. The consequences of losing here, they don’t even want to consider it, they can’t, they can’t fathom it. The idea that any outsider is gonna come along and win an election and try to wrest control of the country back from them, they just can’t abide it.
In fact, if you go back to 1980 you might find a closer parallel, polling-wise. I don’t know about enthusiasm at Reagan rallies. I know Reagan had tons of enthusiasm starting in 1976 at the Republican convention, but my point in 1980, the polling data in 1980 had Jimmy Carter nine points, winning by nine points four or five days out. In fact, the last major poll before the 1980 election had Jimmy Carter winning by nine points, I think it was.
I will never forget that election night, folks. In 1980, it was so bad for the Democrats, they got skunked so bad, Jimmy Carter conceded before 10 p.m. Eastern time, before the polls in California were even closed. Now, back in 1980, the Republicans were still viable in California. They are not now. So I’m not drawing that analogy. Don’t anybody misunderstand. But I’m saying there’s precedent here for pollsters not trying to get close to being right as we near an election. Because they still had it Jimmy Carter winning by nine — I think the last poll was done it’s either five days or maybe it was a week before the election.
I remember that. You should have seen the networks — remember, just three networks back then — ABC, CBS, and NBC. That’s it. CNN was around, but they had just started. They were not much of a factor. Those three networks, you should have seen the long faces and all of the reporters that were at various campaign headquarter locations.
Guy Lombardo and his band were over at the Waldorf-Astoria, and it was unforgettable how devastated they all felt and looked, reporting those — ’cause they hated Reagan, they despised Reagan like they despise Trump now. Look, this is what I mentioned earlier. People asking me how this can be, how can the polls show what they’re showing with all of this energy at every Trump rally there is, every one, it’s not just a couple. Every Trump rally is overwhelming. Anyway, I appreciate the call, Lennie. Thanks much.
We have a brief time-out here. There’s still further polling news in my Stack of Stuff here to get to, and we went back and found the tape of me being interviewed by Paula Zahn 2000. Let you hear a little bit of that when we get back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, here we go. Cookie went back to the archives and found it. This is November 1st in the year 2000, Fox News Channel, The Edge with Paula Zahn. Remember, after this program I got a call from the owner of the Oakland Raiders, Al Davis, who wanted to talk to me about, the late Al Davis, who wanted to expand on a point that I had made in this interview about taxes and tax policy and African-Americans.
His point was that he wanted to tell me that the African-American players on his team did not think of themselves as the rich, even though they were by virtue of what they were making, and he said the outreach needed to be made in that regard, that the wealthy African-American, particularly athletes, were a fertile ground for Republicans if they knew how to approach them and deal with it. Nothing ever came of it, but I was fascinated that Al Davis reached out.
At any rate, that’s just a little anecdotal story about all this. This runs about 42 seconds, and remember this whole interview, the polling data is showing that Algore is gonna win, I’m telling Paula Zahn I just don’t believe this. The interview picks up with Paula Zahn saying, “You’re making it sound like it’s an absolute given that George W. Bush is gonna win. Now, if you look at these polls and you bunch ’em all together, isn’t the bottom line, although Bush might enjoy a slight lead in some of these polls, you’re looking at a margin of error, it’s a statistical dead heat?”
ZAHN: I don’t want to argue poll by poll, but what is your interpretation of —
RUSH: My interpretation is that this race is a lot bigger margin of victory than anybody in the press wants to make it out to be. These polls —
ZAHN: Well, now, wait. Are you suggesting we’re misidentifying the numbers, or we’re interpreting them incorrectly?
RUSH: I think the press relies on these polls and that’s all you rely on. There’s a lot of other factors you can look at. You can look at the momentum. You can look at the attitude of the two candidates. You can see who’s up and positive. You can see who’s down in the dumps. You can see who’s excited to be out there. You can see who appears to be going through the motions. You can see whose supporters are ready to go and excited. You can see other supporters who look like corpses. You can look at the strategy. I mean, the polls, they’re good for one thing, but they’re not the final analysis.
END RUSH ARCHIVE
RUSH: This is something I’ve always believed. I’ve always believed the polls are not the Bible. My instincts have always made me question polls, and for the most basic of reasons, like I question the Nielsen TV ratings. It’s just my common sense. I understand that they can scientifically quantify and analyze all they want, but I remain curious. You want to tell me that a thousand people in this country with little boxes on their TVs can tell us what millions of people are actually watching.
Well, since the TV producers and networks and everybody accept it, then, yeah, you have to. If the TV industry, the TV broadcast industry accepts what Nielsen says, then, yeah. But I’m a bigger doubting Thomas. Now, I don’t go so far as to say, “Well, I don’t have one of those boxes, never polled me.” I don’t do that. I’m not that big a lug head, but I do have questions about how 1,000 people can be collected and chosen in a way that statistically, unequivocally represents an audience of 200 million Americans watching television. (interruption) Yeah. Well, I know. I’ve heard that analogy, that one drop of blood can tell a scientist everything going on in your body. Okay, well, fine.
By the same token, you go out and survey seven, 800 people, and you pick ’em, according to the best representation of the voting population that you can get, you’re doing it up front, honestly, that you can get within a margin of error pinpoint prediction of how the election’s gonna go? It’s always been a tough thing for me to see, even when I’ve been on the side of the winners.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Steve in Lexington, Kentucky, great to have you with us, sir, on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: It’s good to be here. To give people some hope for this election, last year when Matt Bevin ran for governor of Kentucky he was up against a Louisville elite candidate and all the New Media had him down by I believe five points the night before the election. And, lo and behold, the next day he won by almost a landslide, almost 10 points.
RUSH: I remember that.
CALLER: You remember that?
RUSH: Yeah, I do, of course.
RUSH: Right. Yeah, look, here’s the problem. With every one of these stories you can call and tell me, I can find you five polling stories that were accurate, and this is the challenge, folks. Look, there’s nobody that wants these polls to be wrong more than I do. And in 2012 I sat here every day and told you they were wrong because they were using the wrong turnout model, that they were not factoring the turnout in 2010. All those Tea Party people.
And I figured 2012 would be a different turnout, not nearly as upbeat and enthusiastic for Obama because it was a-one-time thing, you know, first African-American president, first time on the ballot, hard to replicate that in 2012. But then I didn’t factor the Romney side and the effect the nomination of Romney and his whole campaign had on the Republican side. I made a foolish mistake of assuming that every Republican that could vote would vote because they were so fed up with Obama and the economy.
And as we learned later, there were anywhere from two to four million Republicans that didn’t show up, that didn’t vote in 2012 who did vote for McCain. And it was left, then, for experts to tell us why they didn’t show up. One of the theories was, well, Romney wasn’t conservative. Everybody knew it and the conservatives were fed up with the Republicans for nominating another Northeastern liberal, essentially, a moderate that was gonna lose. We had all kinds of explanations for it.
Dick Morris, he was doing the same thing. He later admitted that he knew all along that the polls were right. He was just trying to keep the Fox News audience enthused and optimistic. And after he admitted that it wasn’t long after that he left Fox News. But I remember Morris saying what he was saying gave me a measure of security in saying it myself. So look, I know that there are countless examples of the pollsters getting it wrong. In 1980, Reagan and Carter. But for every one of those that you cite there’s a whole slew that you can point to that were right on the money, too.
That’s why I’m saying I don’t know, folks, I literally don’t know. I’m just like you. I look at the external signs, and the polls don’t make any sense to me. So I don’t know. I’m not gonna caught in a trap again of automatically rejecting what’s out there but all the while understanding, this is a different election. This is the establishment doing whatever it takes to remain in power, and that is no small set of circumstances there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I’ll give you another example, ’cause there are many where the polling data had it all wrong. That was the election of Eric Cantor, or I should say the defeat of Eric Cantor, who was number two in the House. We were told that voters, they’re never gonna turn out anybody ranking in the leadership in the House from their district, that incumbancy is good as gold, the American voter is sophisticated to know that having one of their own in a leadership position and maybe be the second in command on a fast track to be Speaker never gonna unelect himself, so to speak, but it happened.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites. We now go to Good Morning America. Matthew Dowd, former campaign strategist for George W. Bush was on with Robin Roberts today. She said, “We talked last week about what happens when you go into a prevent defense in football. You give up all kinds of yards but you don’t give up a touchdown. You don’t let the other team score, but you give all the ground is necessary.” And so she’s asking Matthew Dowd here about Hillary and whether this prevent defense like not showing up at rallies, not showing up anywhere in public, letting surrogates do it, is that wise.
DOWD: She has to be careful from crossing the line between confidence to cockiness, and she can’t get to cockiness. If she maintains a series of events every day until Election Day, in the end many times voters get more enthusiastic if they think you’re gonna win. Looks like she has a lead in the polls, which I think is around six or seven, not 12. That actually helps among her voters to get more enthusiastic.
REPORTER: Most times when candidates have a lead of this size two weeks out, it tends to close up towards the end.
RUSH: That was George Stephanopoulos, and he and Dowd are essentially saying, “We don’t trust our own poll at 12 points, either.” That’s what they’re saying. It’s six or seven, but that’s enough to make Hillary supporters confident they’re gonna win, and that confidence breeds energy and it breeds action and that’s what they say Hillary needs to do, go out there every day and let people be energetic in their support for her.
Dana Perino on the Today show today on NBC, Savannah Guthrie. Perino works at The Five on Fox, as you know, and Savannah Guthrie says, “Is it too early? Fifteen days. That’s a lifetime in politics. Don’t have to tell you. Does Trump have any chance of really turning it around? Could the polls maybe not show as tight a race as it really is? That’s what Trump suggests. He’ll point point to polls that show a much tighter rate, so what do you think, Dana?”
PERIN: They’re gonna have to do that, and they do have some things that you could say like within the margin of error, like in Florida, he’s spending I think today and tomorrow there, had a huge rally last night. Unfortunately, I think, for some of their supporters they’re confusing enthusiasm at rallies with votes at the ballot box. I don’t necessarily think those two things are equal, but there certainly is enthusiasm on their side.
RUSH: Okay. So conventional wisdom is what we got there. Well, yeah, two weeks, I guess so, but, you know, it’s a long shot, it’s a real, real long shot, I think some of Trump’s supporters, they’ve just mistaken all these turnout enthusiasts for votes, it just isn’t the case. I don’t think you can make that point. But there certainly is a lot of enthusiasm on their side, she admits.
Kellyanne Conway, Meet the Press yesterday, F. Chuck Todd, “Where do you see the race now, Kellyanne? Do you acknowledge you are behind?”
RUSH: Kellyanne Conway admitting, yeah, we’re behind, but it’s not like the polls are saying and we’ve got, you know, maybe one, three, four points, some of these swing states that Romney also lost, Chuck, and with Hillary under 50%. Despite all the money that she’s spent, despite all the powerful people she’s got out there supporting here, we think we can pull it off, Chuck.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Karl Rove was asked on Fox News Sunday yesterday if he thinks Trump can win. He said, “I don’t see it happening.” David Axelrod on Slay the Nation, “I don’t know any political professional who doesn’t think the election is over.” Frank Luntz was also on Slay the Nation, and he said, “No, I don’t think it’s over, ’cause if you look at the polling numbers across the country in those key states there are enough people still undecided, and Hillary Clinton’s still under 50%.”
Folks, nobody knows. I don’t care what they tell you, nobody knows, and that’s why the Drive-Bys are leaving nothing to chance with these polls and these stories of Democrats going into red states to win down ballot. You mark my words.