RUSH: I’m looking here at the latest snapshot at Real Clear Politics. All the different polls that they publish, their Real Clear Politics poll average overall, the four-way RCP average with four candidates, favorability ratings, live betting odds, the Electoral College, Real Clear Politics electoral map, battleground states.
Folks, I’m just telling you, every down arrow here is next to Hillary Clinton’s name. The blue arrows, if you go to the Real Clear Politics page, they update every day or every time a new poll updates, they add that to their averages, their rolling, tracking, whatever, and then they change the direction if it’s up or down, and Hillary is down everywhere but in Ohio, but yet Trump is still plus 1.1 in Ohio, yet Hillary is showing upward movement there.
Remember, now, it’s an average of all the polls, and if you want to see each individual poll, you can do that, too. But this is the average that I’m talking about. So what’s going on here? Is it as I predicted, that as we near the election, the polls will tighten to more accurately reflect reality, because up ’til now, the polls are simply a tool, a weapon to shape public opinion.
RUSH: State of Florida. Bloomberg has Trump up two points here in Florida.
Now, you might say, “Well, so what?” Well, Obama won Florida in 2012 by one point. You know that? I think. I might have to be double-checked on this. But I know that Trump is up by two, and Rubio is up by 10. Marco Rubio’s running against somebody named Patrick Murphy, and he’s up by 10 points against somebody named Patrick Murphy. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Remember? Trump was gonna destroy every Republican down the ballot. Trump is so bad, Trump is so destructive, Trump is so damaging that the entire Republican Party might not even exist after Trump gets blown out.
In fact, the Washington Post had a story yesterday, and all of the Never Trumpers out there just glommed onto this. They were so excited. Here’s that story: “Amid Lagging Polls, Trump Stops Holding High-Dollar Fundraisers.” Here’s the story: “Donald Trump’s campaign said Tuesday that it has scheduled no more big-money fundraising events to benefit the Republican Party, another sign of the GOP nominee’s struggling campaign and a serious blow to the party’s get-out-the-vote operations with less than two weeks to go until Election Day.”
And the Never Trumpers are just saying, “See? See? He’s so selfish. See? He doesn’t care about anybody himself. See?” Excuse me. Let’s first explain what is standard operating procedure, for those who may not know it. Standard operating procedure is that at the tail end… Well, actually throughout the presidential campaign, the nominee does fundraisers to benefit the party. Hillary is still doing hers, but in many cases she’s using surrogates to show up for her. The party gets, I think, 20% of the take at these particular fundraisers.
Now, the Washington Post says here, “The consequences of halting major fundraisers will compound the challenges facing a candidate and a party already straining to match Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s much larger and better-financed operation. Unlike Clinton, who has an extensive turnout operation of her own, Trump and many other GOP candidates down the ballot are relying heavily on the Republican National Committee to bring voters to the polls.”
And they claim Trump pulling out with just under two weeks of these fundraisers… The Washington Post is trying to say, (impression) “This is Trump being selfish. This is Trump being only himself, this is Trump not caring about the party, this is sure sign the party’s gonna go down the tubes down the ballot. It’s just incredible! We’ve never had a reprobate like Trump. We’ve never had an ingrate like Trump.” I mean, that’s the whole tone of the story, which is why the Never Trumpers liked it and do like it.
Where are the fact-checkers on these women, by the way? There aren’t any. Betsy McCaughey makes that point in the New York Post today. Where is the standard operating procedure? When somebody shows up and accuses the Republican nominee of something, where is this vaunted opposition research bunch that gets into gear to try dispel it? I don’t see a lot of assistance forthcoming for Trump. I don’t know that this has anything to do with why he’s decided… I rather think that what Trump is doing here…
You can look at this two ways, and the Never Trumpers are looking at it as, “He’s given up. He knows he can’t win and so he’s already planning payback. He’s already thinking about getting even, and so if he’s gonna lose, he’s gonna take as many Republicans down ballot with him.” That’s the way they’re looking at it. The way I interpret this is that we got less than two weeks to go, and the objective is to win the presidency, not raise money for the party. And I think the focus here is going to be to campaign events designed to get out the vote, designed to persuade people to vote for Trump rather than fundraising dinners.
You tell me what you think here is going on. But this an example of the kind of barrage that Trump gets. You get a story like this in the Washington Post that nobody on our side even chooses to question in terms of its motivation. They just accept it hook, line, and sinker, because, after all, it’s the Washington Post. And you have the Never Trump population on our side who’s eager for him to lose and eager for him to be humiliated. So a story like this that can be spun to portray him as selfish and greedy and not wanting to share is right up there alley.
But what if all that’s going on here is Trump’s saying, “You know what? You may have done all this way in the past but we’re down to less than two weeks here and I don’t have time to go out there and do all this fundraising. I’m doing as much as I can for the party by doing what I’m doing. It’s not me not supporting the party; it’s the party in some case not supporting me.” I mean, this could get down in the weeds as far as you want to take it. But I just find it fascinating the way people are looking at this.
So Trump’s up two in the Bloomberg poll in Florida. Marco Rubio is up by 10. Neither are supposed to be happening. Obama, we think, wins Florida… We could look it up. It wouldn’t be much trouble. He won Florida by one point in 2012 — and, by the way, there was no recount asked for, despite how close it was.
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RUSH: Obama wins Florida by less than one point in 2012, 0.9 he was up over Romney. Trump up two in Florida. And again, Rubio, who was supposed to — everybody down ballot is supposed to lose ’cause Trump, too, remember. Rubio’s up 10 over somebody named Patrick Murphy.