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What the Pollsters Could Be Missing — Purposely and Unpurposely

by Rush Limbaugh - Oct 27,2020

RUSH: Now, I also got an email or two — ahem, ahem, ahem — after my last little monologue after the guy called in the last hour and wanted to know what my sources were saying about the prospect of flipping the House and holding onto the Senate.

Apparently, my answer came across as a downer to, shall we say, a few people, and I didn’t intend that to be the case. I was just doing a riff here on what I consider to be timeless, ageless American values — and using those timeless, ageless American values, there’s no way Joe Biden should be leading anything. The guy’s not working for it. He’s not trying for it.

He’s not doing anything for it!

He’s just sitting up there, taking up space in his basement with a D next to his name. His running mate isn’t doing anything. The media is running the campaign for him. He’s not even running his own campaign. He doesn’t have to; the media is, and I’m thinking to myself, “That should not be rewarded.” You know, I believe in the meritocracy of our culture, of our society.

I also believe in the profound concept of fairness and unfairness, and if you want to talk about unfairness, you know, young people today are obsessed with unfairness. Young people, high school students, college students, they’re obsessed with it. One of the reasons they like Democrats is they think the Democrats are gonna end unfairness. They think the Democrats are gonna end inequality.

You can’t find somebody… I don’t even think this is arguable. You can’t find anybody who has been more unfairly treated at a base level than Donald Trump — except it’s worse than unfair, the stuff that he has been subjected to. So I’m simply saying that by all that is American, that kind of treatment of people — that kind of behavior by the Democrats, by the media — doesn’t get rewarded in our country.

That’s all I was saying. But let me expand on this, if I may, ’cause one of the questions I asked: Is it possible the pollsters could be so blatantly wrong two elections in a row? Common sense would tell you no, that their business representations depend on them not being wrong so dramatically two presidential elections in a row.

So they’re out basically predicting identical results as they did in 2016. The only difference is that it’s for Plugs instead of Hillary. So the question is: Is it possible for the pollsters to get it wrong again? Oh, yeah! It doesn’t seem likely, but is it possible? Hell, yes! And maybe not on purpose. Maybe it’s possible to get it wrong out of laziness or out of confidence that they’re not gonna be held accountable.

I think that’s a big deal. I think — and I’ve mentioned this before — if you’re in any business where the mainstream American media is not going to hold you accountable, then you are free like other people will never know freedom. If you’re never gonna be held accountable for your mistakes, if you’re never gonna be held accountable for blowing it big time, then you’re gonna have less pressure.

You’re gonna have less stress on being right, if nobody’s gonna hold you accountable, if nobody’s gonna blame you. So without that kind of accountability pressure, is it likely (or possible) that these people could be overconfident once again? Remember, they have been poisoned with their hatred for Trump. Now, here’s the thing.

Let’s go back to 2016. (interruption) There’s Trump arriving in Joint Base Andrews. I guess that’s Marine One landing at Joint Base Andrews. Yeah. He’ll be leaving here for Lansing, Michigan, if I got this right. Joint Base Andrews is just… That’s where you go after you leave the White House and are gonna catch Air Force One to head out of town. Yeah. So we got plenty of time.

You go back to 2016, the electorate was what it was, and clearly the pollsters had no idea what the electorate was in 2016. They didn’t know — and they didn’t care, by the way. Remember in 2016, Hillary was gonna win no matter what, plus they were running the coup. They had already started running the coup during the president’s campaign.

He calls it, “They were spying on my campaign.” It was so much more than that. They were doing so much more than spying on his campaign. They were undermining it. They were attempting plant spies in the campaign who would then call Putin and the Russians, and then be able to release the news that the Trump campaign was colluding.

Fortunately, all of those attempted spies didn’t get hired. Man, oh, man, what a stroke of luck. Anyway, the electorate in 2016, the media, and the pollsters didn’t care. They thought Hillary was gonna win in a landslide. You know it. You remember it as well as I do. The election happens. Trump wins by narrow margins in battleground states. Narrow margins. In the Electoral College, big win.

The popular vote, he loses by three million because of California. You can even go back and say in 2016… You could make the point that the polling didn’t get it wrong the first time, that they purposely skewed the polls to suppress and depress Republican turnout. Don’t forget that is a common practice of polling units today, is to depress you into thinking there’s no hope.

“There’s no reason for you to go vote. Your side’s not gonna win!” They want you depressed. They want you suppressed. They want you dispirited. One of the best ways to do it is to flood you with polling data showing your candidate has no prayer. I think that was part and parcel of what they were doing in 2016. I think they’re practicing it again this year.

In addition to that, the electorate, I believe, has dramatically changed since 2016, and I don’t think the pollsters have been working hard enough to keep up with the changes. I don’t think they have the slightest idea how. For example, there is such a thing this year as a Trump Democrat. They didn’t think there was such a thing in 2016, a Trump Democrat, no way. There is. There are a lot of Trump Democrats today, folks.

Oh-ho-ho. Don’t doubt me on this. I think these pollsters this time around are even more invested in beating Trump so they will have no qualms about lying about the numbers to depress Republican turnout. They’ll lie about everything else. Why not their polling? That’s the thing that you have to keep in mind. They lie about everything else. They lie about every other thing they say when they cover Trump. Ninety-two percent negative coverage. Why would they be telling the truth about their polling? Why would polling be the one place that they’re honest? Don’t think it would be.

I think they’re dishonest from top to bottom. They’re dishonest side to side. They’re dishonest up to down. And they use everything at their disposal to depress you, suppress you, dispirit you. So there’s a Trump Democrat in the electorate this year. They haven’t bothered to find out. They don’t even want to consider the possibility. They haven’t bothered to study it.

I think in the 2020 electorate there is such a thing as a Trump black voter. I think there are more of those than the Drive-By Media and the pollsters would even acknowledge and try to find. And if it’s just 10%, it’s a game-changer. I think there is such a thing as the “screw you” voter. These people lie to the pollsters, on purpose. Some of them don’t even talk to anybody. Some of them don’t answer the pollster call or the email or whatever, but if they do, they lie to them.

And you know what else? Every Trump rally Ronna McDaniel or somebody in the campaign releases the data that they have amassed after surveying the attendees. And it’s striking how many people who have never voted are attending these rallies in 2020. It’s striking. Like, in some rallies it’s as high as 40% who have never voted, who plan on voting this time around. Because they relate to Trump. They’ve never related to anybody else. They’ve never bothered to vote. It’s a stunning statistic at every one of these rallies.

Also, the second really stunning statistic from these rallies, how many Democrats show up. That’s why I say that there are Trump Democrats that are not being picked up by pollsters. I think all of these groups — Trump Democrats, black voters for Trump, I even think that there’s some women voters for Trump that are really being missed as well. And of course the “screw you” voter who’s not talking to anybody or lying to pollsters. And the first time voters that haven’t voted at all, I think all of these groups are being totally ignored and missed by the pollsters.

They’re going off the 2016 likely voter list breakdowns. That’s what they’re doing. That’s how they’re trying to find the respondents for their polls. And they over-poll the coasts. What good is it to poll the East Coast and the Left Coast when you’re polling Donald Trump voters? That’s not where they are. So, yeah, bottom line, I think it’s possible for the pollsters to get it wrong again, even if they’re not trying to. Laziness, overconfidence, which is a biggie, and the dramatic change in the electorate since 2016.

This is another thing that they miss that I think they think is pretty stagnant or constant. And you know where this is the most obvious? I don’t know how to express this properly. But Obama was just doing a rally for Plugs. He was in Orlando at another one of these car honk rallies. And I don’t know. Folks, Barack Obama — and I have to be as objective here as I can because of my own bias against the guy. I’d forgotten what a serial liar Obama is.

But the guy just seems — I don’t know — out of place. He doesn’t seem relevant anymore. He doesn’t have that magnetic, infectious God reverb popularity that he had when he was president, just doesn’t have it. You can just see it. He’s not drawing crowds wherever he goes, and it’s another bit of visual evidence that contradicts the conventional wisdom that Biden is winning and winning big. That just doesn’t compute. It just doesn’t make sense.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me give you more evidence, ladies and gentlemen, this voter suppression thing is accurate, meaning the polling units are actively trying to suppress your vote. They’re trying to spirit you. They are trying to depress you. They’re trying to make you think it’s over. Same thing that happened in 2016. These margins that they’re reporting Biden leading by are designed to get you all depressed and down in the dumps and thinking that no matter what you don’t have a prayer.

I’ll just tell you one thing. If Texas were really tied like they’re saying it is, guess where Biden would be? Plugs or somebody — they’d a send Obama, somebody would be in Texas. If Texas were really in play, they’d have somebody down there. And they don’t. Texas is not in play for the Democrats. I don’t care what these polling units are trying to tell you. I mean, Texas would be huge, folks, if they would flip Texas. And they’re not gonna flip Texas. And the evidence of that is they don’t have anybody down there. Biden would be there if they had to prop him up however which way possible.

So where is Obama? Well, Obama’s in Florida. Well, now, why? Because we’re told that Biden’s got Florida handily in the bag. Well, this is October 27th, and there is a poll, Florida post-debate poll, Susquehanna in conjunction with the American Greatness. And get this. Trump is up five in Florida, 49 to 44. So this week they send The One to North Miami to do an appearance in front of 20 or 25 cars honking their horns, and today he’s in Orlando doing the same thing. So this voter suppression thing that the pollsters are engaged in is a real thing, ladies and gentlemen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I got a couple more sound bites I want to get to before we get back to the phones. This is Vanessa Yurkevich. She is the business and politics correspondent for CNN. And she’s reporting about confusion among voters in Pennsylvania surrounding where Biden stands on fracking. And so we got a little sound bite here where she is attempting to explain this.

YURKEVICH: We traveled to Allensburg, (sic) Pennsylvania, and we spoke to voters —

RUSH: Wait a minute. It’s Allentown, Martinsburg. How do people like this get… never mind. I’m not gonna axe. Ask. Ask. Sorry. We’ll start it at the top and we’ll be nice.

YURKEVICH: We traveled to Allensburg, (sic) Pennsylvania, and we spoke to voters there in this very small town, particularly business owners, who say they will not survive if fracking does not exist.

EMANUEL PARIS: President Trump has a more clear perspective on keeping fracking going with minimal regulations. Where Biden in the past, and through the campaign, has kind of gone back and forth on what he wants to do.

SHARLO TKALCEVIC: It’s almost like a domino effect and it could just be disastrous in my eyes if, if, you know, first a pandemic, and then fracking is banned.

YURKEVICH: The majority of the voters we spoke to say they will be supporting President Trump this time around.

RUSH: (Gasping) What? Wait, what? (Gasping) The majority of voters we spoke to say they’re supporting Trump this time around based on fracking and the fact that Plugs wants to shut it down. How about that?

Moving forward, audio sound bite number 17. They’re predicting a Biden landslide. You know that, right? They’re trying to suppress your vote. They’re trying to dispirit you. They’re trying to depress you. They’re trying to make you curl up into a fetal ball where you can’t even go outside. They’re trying to make you scared to death of the sunlight. They’re trying to make you think your world as you know it is over. It’s just a matter of November 3rd coming and going.

That’s on the one hand. But, on the other hand, over here Biden landslide. Over here, why, we may be counting votes for days. Which is it? This is CNN’s New Day today. John Berman, the host, speaking with senior politics writer Harry Enten.

BERMAN: When will we know who won the election? When all the votes are counted. And it might not be the evening of November 3rd. And history tells us that that’s okay.

ENTEN: Right. Just go two years ago, look at the Arizona Senate race. Remember Kyrsten Sinema, the incumbent there, she was declared the winner on the Monday after Election Day, nearly a week later, and she won that race by two points. It wasn’t that tight. But again, I’ll say this over and over and over again, it’s better to be accurate than fast.

RUSH: What is this? Biden’s gonna win in a landslide. Now we’re better to be accurate than fast. See, folks, these people are all over the place. They are not thinking Biden in a landslide, but they want you to think it is. John Berman, I love this. “When will we know who won? When all the votes are counted. And it might not be the evening of November 3rd. And history tells us that’s okay.”

I’m Stuart Smalley, and that’s okay. I’m Stuart Smalley, and I’m fine, and I’m okay. And if we don’t know who won on election night, that’s okay, because we’re okay, because we are fine people, and we are okay. What is this? Talking to us like we’re a bunch of chumps with microphones up on a hill.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Trump has just tweeted, “3 Points up in Michigan, 2 Points up in Wisconsin, 3 Points up in Pennsylvania. The Great Red Wave is forming, and getting ready to VOTE!” The Great Red Wave.


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