RUSH: The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. They’re just going nuts out there. The Drive-Bys have been predicting that Trump’s gonna fall, and they’ve been predicting that the bottom’s gonna fall out, he’s gonna fade away and not be a factor. And they’re saying the same thing about Ben Carson, by the way.
You know, all the people beneath Carson and Trump, the Rubios, Bushes, Christie, Fiorina, Huckabee, Kasich, Rand Paul, their organizations, the media are all treating the two front-runners as though they’re not really there. That Trump’s gonna vanish, he’s not really serious about this. He is gonna step in it, commit this great gaffe can’t recover from, everybody knows it, just waiting for it. “Carson, come on, are you kidding me? This guy is not gonna get the nomination. This guy could never be elected president. Come on. You know he’s not gonna be there.”
You know, Newt Gingrich observed, here you have the two people that have been the front-runners from the get-go, and everybody else in the party’s running around treating them as though it’s artificial and fake and phony and it just isn’t real and they’re not gonna be there. Newt said (paraphrasing), “Well, how do you think this way? Never seen it before, where the two front-runners are considered to really not even be there, to be illegitimate and yet they’re front-runners since the first days of the campaign.” Well, anyway, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Republican national — this is not a singular state or a region. Carson 29%. And they’re saying, by the way, that he’s the only one that didn’t whine to the media during the debate the other night. He’s the only guy that stayed above the fray.
And the message there is, you other Republicans whining and complaining about the media, the audience doesn’t like it, your voters don’t like it, think you’re cowards. Ben Carson, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t act like he’s worried, and look what happened to him. Is a phony association, but it’s an attempt to get as many Republicans as they can to stand down and not stand up and speak out. Carson’s at 29%, Trump at 23%, Rubio at 11%, Ted Cruz at 10%, Jeb Bush 8%, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich all at 3%, and Rand Paul is at 2%.
Here is a media montage. The Drive-Bys have awakened, they’re excited, and they think they’re on the way now to finally — once and for all — burying Trump.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: (music) Our new poll with a decisive lead for Ben Carson! Has Trump lost his lead for good?
ALISYN CAMEROTA: (music) It looks like there’s a new national front-runner! It is not the first national poll showing Carson ahead of the brash billionaire. It’s the second.
MARIA BARTIROMO: (music) Ben Carson in the lead nationally overtaking Donald Trump.
PETER ALEXANDER: The big headline, that Ben Carson has shot up seven points in less than two weeks. That drops Donald Trump to second.
HEATHER CHILDERS: (music) Big changes in the race for the White House with Ben Carson extending his lead on Donald Trump.
SARA MURRAY: (shouting) It’s not Donald Trump that’s leading nationwide anymore! Instead Ben Carson is the frontrunner!
TOM LLAMAS: The big headline this morning, Dr. Ben Carson surging.
ATHENA JONES: The new numbers suggest that last week’s poll — which also showed Carson in the lead — wasn’t an outlier!
RUSH: No, no, they’re all… Did you hear how excited they are? You can barely contain themselves. It was Savannah Guthrie, NBC News; Alisyn Camerota of CNN, Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network; Peter Alexander, NBC; Heather Childers, who is Fox News. Sara Murray is CNN and Trump praised her today at the press conference. Tom Llamas who is there from I guess… I don’t know where he’s from. Oh, he’s from Yahoo. And then it was Athena Jones. Athena Jones is CNN, too.
So you hear all the excitement they have in their voices reporting that it’s over for Trump and Ben Carson is on top! And none of ’em… Don’t doubt me: None of them think Ben Carson is real. In fact, many of them have taken to try to explain what’s happening here. And a lot of it is chalked up, “Well, you know, Ben’s getting the evangelical vote. Ben’s getting the religious vote.” Yeah? Is that right? Well, I thought the religious voters always got mocked, made fun of.
The Republican Party was said to not really need their votes, not really want their votes. And yet if this is right, that it’s evangelical Christian voters that are propelling Carson, what does it say? I mean, that’s a serious number here, 29%. If you believe it. I don’t know what evidence anybody would have to throw it out. If you believe it, 29% (Trump at 23%), it’s a major, major climb. Carson has made up major ground, and now it’s not just in Iowa, but in this national poll as well.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, another obvious question. If you’ve got Ben Carson 29% in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, leading the Republican pack, how can that be? The Republican Party is a bunch of racists! How can it be that they’re making the African-American candidate numero uno? And then you got two Hispanic candidates in there also at the top five. That would be Cruz and Rubio. And then we’ve got a woman in there, Carly Fiorina. And yet Republicans are portrayed as… Well, you know, the drill.
The margin of error in this poll, by the way, is a little higher than standard. The NBC poll has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. Normally it’s in the 2.5 to 3.5 range. But a margin of error 4.5, it’s pretty big. The latest New York Times poll that also had Carson way up in Iowa. That had a six-point margin of error. That’s unheard of. I mean, that’s the kind of results you get in a just go out and ask the nearest set of adults you can find, without stripping it down to registered voters or likely voters or narrowing it down. A poll like that with 6% margin of error, that’s not done much, nor is a 4.5% margin of error.
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