RUSH:  North Carolina is a bellwether state now.  We discussed this yesterday.  It wasn’t that long ago, folks, in the campaign, maybe a month ago, Hillary Clinton was down in Ohio, and you remember the experts in the media and in the Hillary campaign, “Well, Ohio is not a bellwether state anymore.  It doesn’t matter.  Ohio doesn’t care either way. Too many white people now living in Ohio, there’s not a good cross-section,” when Hillary wasn’t leading in Ohio.  And she started inching back in Ohio and all of a sudden Ohio started mattering again in the media.  It’s just amazing the way they do this. 

North Carolina has now become a state that is almost as big a battleground as Florida.  And that’s why Obama and Hillary and Trump are going to be spending an inordinate amount of time there between now and election day.  North Carolina is also treating us to conflicting polling data, which I think is as conflicting as any we are getting.  Depending on which polls you look at, Trump is plus 5 to plus 7.  In other polls Hillary is plus 3 or plus 4. 

The Hillary-oriented polls tell you that early voting is going so much in her favor that it’s going to be a landslide.  The African-American vote and the early vote in North Carolina is just going through the roof for Hillary.  But then you find elsewhere in other reporting you would think legitimate, that says just the opposite.  So the upshot is nobody really knows what’s going on in North Carolina.  It depends on what you want to believe.  So I have done my best to come up with what I think is the definitive best as of this moment in North Carolina.  And right now everybody’s calling North Carolina a tie, a toss-up. 

Here are the early voting totals so far on day 15 since early voting began.  And remember Romney won North Carolina in 2012, but just barely.  Barely squeaked by.  Registered Democrats are 1/10 of one percent behind their numbers from the same day in 2012, four years ago, 0.1 percent behind.  The Democrats are 0.1 percent behind their numbers four years ago.  Registered Republicans are 12 and a half percent ahead of their turnout numbers in North Carolina early voting, same day, 2012.  Registered unaffiliated voters, precious independents and so forth, 43 percent ahead of their same day totals from four years ago. 

Numbers are hard to follow.  Let me repeat.  Day 15, early voting, North Carolina, Democrats 1/10 of one percent behind their numbers from four years ago, same day.  Registered Republicans, 12 and a half percent ahead of where they were four years ago, and unaffiliated independents, 43 percent ahead.  So of the independents, the unaffiliated, how they go, who knows.  Why aren’t they registered either way?  We don’t know. 

Black vote.  North Carolina.  Early vote.  Down 10 percent from where it was at this time in 2012.  Same-day total numbers with a deficit of over 60,000 ballots compared to 2012.  So the Democrats, all told, are 60,000 ballots lower if you count the black vote in with that than they were four years ago in early voting.  That does not say tossup to me.  It says Democrats trouble, and that’s why Obama is in North Carolina twice today.  And he’s out there saying things like (imitating Obama), “Donald Trump right at home with the KKK.  Donald Trump loves the KKK.”  That’s disgusting, but that’s what they’ve got to say.