RUSH: Now, by the way, just in from the Wall Street Journal. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll just released: “Hillary Clinton’s national lead over Bernie Sanders has sharply eroded.” The way the Journal’s blurb reads is: “Senator Bernie Sanders has all but eliminated Hillary Clinton’s lead among Democrat primary voters nationwide as her standing has eroded under fire from her primary opponent and Republican rivals [i.e., Crooked Hillary] according to what a new Wall Street/NBC News poll has found.”

Bernie Sanders, for the first time, is close to tying Hillary Clinton. Here are the numbers: 48% Bernie, 50% Hillary. In last month’s poll, Hillary was ahead by nine. Her lead was 53-44. Her nine-point lead is down to a two-point lead, which is a margin-of-error lead. Again, it’s a national poll. This is another instance in the Democrat primary that was not supposed to happen. Bernie was never supposed to get this close. Nowhere near this close. Hillary was not to even still be in a perceived contest by this time.

According to the original schematic of this campaign, the way they drew it up, Bernie was to have been long gone by now, after having presented a valiant effort. But he was to have been vanquished weeks ago. So now there will be panic and upset. And you can see Bill Clinton starting to fall apart with this stuff, starting to blame people, starting to blame Millennials. He’s starting to blame people for the way they’re thinking and the way they’re planning on voting. This wasn’t supposed to be.

To the phones we return. Alex in Payson, Illinois. Great to have you. I am glad you waited. Welcome to the program. Hello.

CALLER: Madam Secretary pole dancer dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Yes, sir. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: I have a question I’d like to ask you and maybe put you on the spot a little bit if you’re willing to make a projection. Everybody’s going through a lot of hand-wringing about who is gonna be affected most by their voters staying home. So my question is, do you think Hillary’s voters — will there be people staying home from the Democratic side more so than the Republican side? In other words, who will it affect the most?

RUSH: Interesting question. I haven’t seen any polling data on Hillary’s voters. We’ve seen a number of polls that suggest that 25% of Bernie’s voters will not vote for her. They’ll stay home and not vote, period. Twenty-five percent of Bernie’s. I haven’t seen any numbers on how many of Hillary’s voters will not vote if she doesn’t get the nomination. Her voters, you would have to assume that Hillary’s voters, the vast majority of them are party elites or people who think they’re party elites. They don’t think of themselves as radical outsiders. They are the Democrat Party establishment. So you would think, therefore, they would be loyal to the party, because, believe me, what animates them is opposition to us. They are more oriented and motivated to see us defeated than anything else that challenges them.

CALLER: How about comparing them to Republicans that are staying home? That was really my question. Will it hurt the Democrats more than it hurts the Republicans to stay home and not vote?

RUSH: Let’s make up a race here. Give me the two candidates that you’re thinking of. Are you thinking Hillary versus Trump?

CALLER: Well — yeah, I think, you know, Trump, slash, Cruz. I mean, you could handicap ’em separately if you’d like, but Hillary against one of the two main Republicans, I guess.

RUSH: Well, really, go with polling data. So Hillary’d be down by 25% of Bernie Sanders votes, which is half the party, it seems now, according to polling data. So she’d be down 25, if they’re being honest and they actually don’t show up. If Trump is the nominee — you know, I really don’t know. The party establishment has people being quoted as saying that they would vote for Hillary rather than vote for Trump, and some of them are even saying that about Cruz.

Well, it’s a good question. Who gets hurt most, or who gets hurt the more by virtue of being nominated. It’s really a question of how many Republicans stay home versus how many Democrats stay home. And I don’t know. I have to think that the stay-home vote will always hurt the Republicans more. That’s my impression. But again the dynamics on the Democrat side are different than we’ve ever seen them.

This bunch of Sanders voters, I believe these people when they say they won’t show up if Bern’s not the nominee. By the way, they’re not saying that. They’re saying they won’t show up if Hillary is. The Trump people are saying they won’t show up if Trump is denied. The Bernie people are not saying they won’t show up if better than Bern is denied. They won’t show up if Hillary is the nominee. You might say they’re one and the same. But I think not showing up if Hillary is the nominee is much broader and encompasses many more people, than if they’re saying, “I won’t show up if Bernie’s the nominee.”

So Hillary is the lightning rod on the Democrat side. I think it’s all bogus. I think it’s gonna be one of the biggest turnout elections we’ve ever had. I think stay-at-homes are widely overestimated. It is just a bunch of people threatening things right now. Some of them will, but just like the Democrat turnout right now, even with all this enthusiasm for Bernie, there isn’t any manifestation of large turnout as part of this. All of that’s on the Republican side. And they could kill it. They could kill all this excitement by making the wrong steps at strategic points yet to happen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: And, by the way, folks, when you start talking about Democrats staying home, that doesn’t mean they’re not gonna vote. Remember who we’re talking about here. Dead Democrats vote. And they’re not at home. So just because Democrats say they’re gonna stay at home does not by any means mean that they are not going to vote.

Now, the latest polls say that not so many people will stay home if Trump is the nominee. That number is shifting. You know, it used to be a big number of people saying if Trump’s the nominee they’re staying home. The number is going down now. I forget the poll, but we had it last week. But the number of people I think in that poll who say that they will refuse to vote for Trump is supposed to be the same number as those who say they will never vote for Cruz or for Kasich.

You know, I played golf yesterday and at lunch beforehand a couple people came up — I’m just sharing with you what people think. They don’t care about this stuff. They think Kasich, they think everything is being wired for Kasich to be the nominee. The problem was they’re looking forward to it, these two that I talked to. So I’m, “Oh, jeez, don’t ruin my golf game.”