RUSH: Biden’s lead slips. The New York Post: Biden’s lead slips in wake of the report on Hunter. “Joe Biden’s polling edge over President Trump eroded this week amid The Post’s scandalous revelations about his son Hunter’s foreign dealings … The IBD/TIPP national tracking poll, released Saturday, puts Biden at 50 percent in the head-to-head matchup, with Trump at 43 percent. … The results also hinted at the possibility of a substantial number of ‘shy Trump’ voters in the electorate: while 47 percent of respondents said they believe that their neighbors are Trump voters, only 36 of them say they are surrounded by Biden backers.”

And then The Politico has a story. “The Nagging Unknowns That Have Democrats Sweating a Trump Upset.” Do you realize, why is this even being called a Trump upset if it happens? It’s being called a Trump upset because from the very moment they began polling this race, Trump has been destined to lose it in a landslide, right? You talk about setting a baseline or setting expectations. It has never, ever been the case that the incumbent in this race ever had a prayer.

The frame of mind that has been accompanying every report on the polling of this race is that Donald Trump is going to lose in a massive landslide. He’s the incumbent. He’s the only guy who has a positive record. He’s the only guy who can tell people what he’s done and what more he’s going to do. I find it just fascinating the way this is psychologically playing out. Trump, why, it’s as though he didn’t win in 2016. No, he didn’t win. He didn’t get a majority of electoral votes. No, no. None of that, no. Trump’s destined to lose in a landslide. They’re repeating the 2016 campaign as though it’s the 2020 campaign while ignore the 2016 election that Trump won. And so every poll has Trump losing in a landslide.

Now, as the polling data tightens, guess what? Why, a Trump upset may be coming. Could it be that maybe a Trump upset was never in the cards? Could it be that in the real world Donald Trump has always been right in the thick of things, has never been down 15, has never been down 12? What does it matter anyway if six months ago they said that or a year ago. So this is how they set the expectations. This is how they make you think it’s so far out of the realm of possibility that you may as well not even hope for it. You may as well not even vote for Trump, he doesn’t have a prayer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now nagging unknowns have Democrats sweating a Trump upset.

So the presumption is, as it is in every election, the presumption is Democrats are gonna win. And Democrats are gonna win big. The presumption is Democrats always win. The presumption is that when the Democrats don’t win, somebody came along and cheated. They cheated Algore in 2000. They cheated John Kerry in 2004. They cheated Hillary in 2016. Now they’re getting ready to cheat Biden. That’s the common frame of mind, that every election is the Democrats, the Democrats win every one. If something comes along and causes an upset…

Now, let’s get started with the audio sound bites. We’ll start at the top of the list. This is me. I want to go back to August 31st because Biden said on that date or thereabouts that in terms of locking down the country again, if a scientist came long and told him he had to do it, he would do it.

Again, the point was, “I’m a smart guy, I’m Joe Biden, I’m gonna listen to the science.” They’re trying to say that Trump is a buffoon, that Trump is an ignoramus and an idiot, thinks he’s smarter than the scientists, doesn’t trust the science, and that that’s unacceptable. Here is what I said about this…

RUSH ARCHIVE: The idea that we got some doofus Democrat presidential candidate promising everybody that he will relock down the country if some scientist comes along and tells him we have to ought to scare the bejeezus out of everybody, because that is the last thing we need to do.

RUSH: Shutting down the country would be a disaster. It was a disaster the first time. The Democrats still have many of their states and cities shut down for the express purpose of doing damage U.S. economy. The last thing we need is more of it. But note this “science” business. Anybody can put on a white coat and stand next to Joe Biden, claim to be a scientist, and issue a report saying:

“Based on my scientific analysis of the scientific circumstances, the scientific criteria we’ve looked at here, the scientific theorems and algorithms, it seems necessary to me to say — as a scientist — that we need to shut down the country.” Plugs says, “Okay! We’re gonna shut down the country. Scientist here said so!” Unh-uh.

You know why? Science has become as politicized as the Democrat Party itself is. The last thing in the world ought to be because “science” says so or a scientist says so. To show you I’m right, on Sunday morning, CNN Reliable Sources, Little Brian Stelter talking to a Harvard Law professor named Yochai Benkler. He said, “You say the Republicans are in an electoral dead end. What does that mean?”

BENKLER: For 40 years now, the Republican coalition has basically been money-focused on deregulation and low taxes, funding a party where the votes come from the white-identity voters’ backlash against the civil rights movement, and the fundamentalist backlash against the women’s movement. So you have this coalition, and it kept becoming more and more constrained as it started to feed from Rush Limbaugh, from Fox News, into its own extremism — and so what you have now is essentially a party that can’t expand beyond its base.

RUSH: “A party that cannot expand beyond its base,” because the Republican coalition has been, basically, money. Like the Democrats are not about money. No, no, no, no, no! Democrats are in it for the cause, right? Focus on deregulation, low taxes? Damn right we are! We’re all for people keeping more of what they earn. We are all for people having more disposable income.

That drives the economy. That causes economic growth. That causes economic rebound. That causes economic opportunity. Damn right we’re for it! But that’s “funded a party where the votes coming from the white identity voters’ backlash against the civil rights movement.” What an absolute crock! Here we are back to it again.

The Republican Party exists because it’s got a bunch of racists, bigots and so forth who are engaging in backlash against the civil rights movement and the women’s movement. A gigantic walking cliche — and this guy, who has as big a closed mind as any bigot you’ll find, is a Harvard Law professor.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You want to hear a very interesting voting statistic? If this is right… I have that as a caveat. If this is right, the Democrat presidential candidate has not won a majority of the white vote since Harry Truman. There’s one exception. It’s LBJ in 1964. That’s at the height of the civil rights movement. (interruption) Well, no.

My point is, they got this doofus Harvard professor, Harvard Law professor, claiming that it’s Republicans that are running around unable to expand our base because people like me and Fox News are convincing people that the election’s about… I mean, I don’t even know what he said. It’s so bigoted. Here it is: “The Republican coalition has basically been money focused on deregulation and low taxes.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“Funding a party where the votes come from the white identity voters’ backlash against the civil rights movement and a fundamentalist backlash against the women’s movement,” when in fact, it is the white vote that does not support the Democrat candidate! It’s a mind-boggling statistic out there.

Here’s Donald Trump. Donald Trump today in a conference call with the campaign staff says the race has turned and that we are gonna win.

THE PRESIDENT: We’re gonna win. I wouldn’t have told you that maybe two or three weeks ago. We’re gonna win. We’re winning in Arizona. We’re winning in Florida. Right now, we’re winning in Florida by three, maybe even four. We have an incredible staff in Florida. Pennsylvania is even, but I think we’re gonna win. I’m hitting it. Every stop I attend, I have 25,000 people, sometimes more.

What we did in Michigan was unbelievable.

You know, we’re up in Michigan. The Trafalgar poll has us one or two points up in Michigan which is shocking. More shocking… This is the early vote in Michigan. The early vote in Michigan, where we were supposed to be at 20% and they were supposed to be at 80% — and it’s always been that way for years and centuries, but for years. We are now up in the early vote, which is… Nobody’s ever seen anything like that.

RUSH: All of that, by the way, I think is true. Especially the early vote. It was one of the lead stories in the program today, the early vote. Shockingly, the Republicans are well ahead. And it’s noteworthy because nobody thinks that… Yeah, here it is: “Early voting numbers in key states are surprising and good news,” and it’s about Michigan and Wisconsin.

It’s about Arizona and Florida — and, you know, most Republican voters think that early voting is a Democrat cheat vehicle. Early voting is where Democrat fraud happens, where all these different mail-in ballots are sent to people, multiple voter registrations, all of that. Republicans are leading in the early voting. I’m just telling you that this whole idea that Trump has been destined to lose in a landslide from the moment they started polling the 2020 race…

He’s the incumbent, for crying out loud!