After Wisconsin Exit Polls, White House Must Wonder If All the Polling is Wrong

RUSH: You know what they're asking themselves in the White House today? They're probably asking themselves a lot of things, and they're probably lying to themselves about a lot of things. I think the question that they're asking themselves today, something along the lines of, "What if all of the polling we have is wrong?"

Greetings, my friends, great to have you back. Here we are, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Great to be with you. Here's the telephone number. 800-282-2882. E-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

Like many powerful, influential members of the media, I, your host, had access to the early and intermediate exit polls. I did. There was an election yesterday in Wisconsin. By the way, you really have to love some of the headlines and some of the leads in the stories about the Walker victory. How about this from the Washington Post: "Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Survives Recall Election." Survives? I saw that all night last night. Survives? That implies barely. That implies by a gnat's eyelash. Survives? This was a thumping! It was a bigger margin than it was two years ago.

"Scott Walker Survives Recall Election. Long lines and close vote. Race tests both parties, November strategies." Not one thing in that headline or lead in the Washington Post is accurate, not one thing. New York Times: "Governor Wins Wisconsin in Recall Drive, Setback for Democrats." Really? You think that might be true? New York Post put it best: "Wisconsin Voters Reject Unions in Recall Vote." The big news of the day is that Big Labor bosses can no longer bully the taxpayers of America. Everybody's talking today about what they think the lessons are and we can engage in that as well. And we'll get there at some point. The bottom line is, I'm not surprised. And if you listen to this program regularly, you shouldn't be surprised. I'm not saying there weren't periods of apprehension and so forth, but I'm not surprised at this.

I think if Obama had been on the ballot he would lose by an even larger margin, which takes me back to this whole thing of polls. Last night on television, the cable networks were reduced to saying that it was a big win for Obama yesterday. Do you know how it was a big win for Obama? The very exit polls that were wrong about the Walker recall race, those exit polls say that voters in Wisconsin, had their presidential election been yesterday, would have voted for Obama in a nine-point margin. So the exit polls, which were known at the time to be useless, they were worthless, they were wrong, the same exit polls were highlighted and were pointed to by liberal Democrats on cable news channels saying, "The happiest guy in town tonight's Obama." They were actually saying that on some networks. "Big winner tonight, Obama."

For Obama to be a big winner last night, what has to happen? He has to not care about Barrett. He didn't. He has to not care about Wisconsin. He didn't. He has to not care about unions. He didn't. In order for Obama to be a big winner last night, I mean, folks, these people are nowhere near grounded in reality. They haven't been for a long time. But all of these polls -- we talked about it yesterday -- that show Obama's personal likability sky-high, I don't believe that. His approval numbers are way below 50%. That's probably true, but I do not believe that in the White House today they're confident and breathing easy at all, because they have to be asking themselves, what if all the polling data we have is wrong?

It's not just the Wilder Effect, either. It's not just that people responding to pollsters don't want to tell the truth when asked about an election when one of the candidates is black. It's not just that. I think there's some people purposely toying with pollsters now. I think there are some sophisticated voters who are purposely telling pollsters things that are not true to screw them up. I think it's an Operation Chaos kinda thing. I think enough sophisticated voters are sick and tired. You turn on the television last night, you know the polls close at nine eastern, so what do you do? You turn on Fox, you turn on any cable network, and what do you see? "Race too close to call."

Now, I'm gonna let something out of the bag here. I probably shouldn't do this. But I had the exit polling data. I had it starting at four o'clock in the afternoon. The exit poll data that I had showed Walker would win by five and then it tightened. The last wave of exit poll data I got showed it 50-50. I also had internal data from one of the news networks. At four o'clock in the afternoon they were predicting when that night they would make the call. And they said it's gonna be close to ten o'clock when we call the race. Four o'clock in the afternoon. Gonna be ten o'clock. So I watch at nine o'clock and I've got the internal stuff and I look at what's on the screen, and I said, "This is all BS. It isn't close. It's not 50-50. The exit polls are wrong, and they're gonna call this at ten o'clock." It's exactly what happened.

Part of this is, you know, creating tension and unpredictability for the viewer and getting the viewer to hang on, but the bottom line is that the exit polls, when they open at nine o'clock -- and every cable channel did it; it's not just focused on one -- every one of them opened at nine o'clock, "Race too close to call." It wasn't, folks. It was never too close to call in reality. The exit polls made it look like it was too close to call. The exit polls at one stage did have it 50-50, and that's when the left-wing media was all excited about it. Here, let's go audio sound bite number one. This is Wolf Blitzer on Piers Morgan Tonight during special coverage. This is at nine o'clock on CNN, Wolf Blitzer joyous.

BLITZER: (joyous) We begin with breaking news out of Wisconsin right now where polls have just closed in a recall vote that could preview November's election. Look at this. Our exit polls show it's a 50-50 race as of this minute.

RUSH: Now, why was Wolf Blitzer excited? Why was 50-50 exciting to Wolf Blitzer and anybody on the left? It was because all the preelection polls had Walker winning by anywhere from three to ten. The average victory, if you wanted to do this in the polls, probably had Walker up by five or six points. So they've got their exit polls, and they've had 'em since four or five o'clock in the afternoon, they can't say, they can't allude to anything by law prior to nine o'clock. When nine o'clock hits, the polls close, it's "Katie bar the door." Wolf is excited, 50-50. Man, this is close, it could be they're gonna have an upset here and Barrett's gonna win. And then let's go to ten o'clock. And I told you, I had the internals where the networks were expecting to call this at ten o'clock. Hey, look, I'm a powerful, influential member of the media. I have access to this stuff.

Here's Wolf Blitzer at ten o'clock, one hour after being joyous at nine o'clock.

BLITZER 10PM: (dejected) We have the breaking news. Uh, CNN can now project a winner in the Wisconsin, uh, gubernatorial contest. The incumbent Republican, Scott Walker, will retain his job as the governor of Wisconsin. The Democratic challenger, Tom Barrett, will not be the next governor of Wisconsin. Once again, he loses to Scott Walker.

RUSH: Can we play those again back-to-back? I don't want to have me in between, Ed. You go bam, bam; one to two; nine o'clock, then ten o'clock.

BLITZER 9PM: (joyous) We begin with breaking news out of Wisconsin right now where polls have just closed in a recall vote that could preview November's election! Look at this! (shouts) Our exit polls show it's a 50-50 race as of this minute!

BLITZER 10PM: The Democratic challenger, Tom Barrett, will not be the next governor of Wisconsin.

RUSH: And notice how Blitzer stopped talking at that point about how the Wisconsin vote would be "a preview of November." Once Walker won, once they called it for Walker, then this race didn't mean anything. It didn't mean a thing! At nine o'clock, when they believed their own exit polls, it was nirvana. And I guarantee you, throughout the Democrat Party -- coast to coast -- they are looking at all the polling data they've got and they're wondering: Is any of it right?

All the polling data they have that shows Obama with whatever number of electoral votes now based on polling, all the polling data they have that shows Obama's personal likability (which is pretty high in these polls), they're looking at it and they're wondering if they can trust any of it. And the odds are, if they're smart, they're going to tell themselves they can't. How many elections is this now where the exit polling has been nowhere near the reality?

The first real glaring instance of it was 2004, when they had John Kerry inaugurated at five o'clock in the afternoon. Bob Shrum went to John Kerry and said, "Let me be the first to call you 'Mr. President.'" And then the real vote started being counted. The same thing happened last night. Then the real votes start being counted, the exit polls are shown to be nowhere near reality, and Democrat voters start thinking that there's fraud in the real vote! Now, I think what's going on in exit polls is simple.

I actually think that Republican voters probably don't participate as much. The Democrats wanted an investigation in 2004. They didn't know of what. They didn't know whether to investigate the real vote or the exit polls, but they were discombobulated. It's the same thing here. Now, putting partisan politics aside (which is impossible to do, but just for the moment we want to do it), shouldn't all of us be celebrating this victory? Because in reality -- strip away all the partisanship, strip away all of the reasons that there is acrimony.

Doesn't this victory last night by Scott Walker mean that states all over the country now have another choice when it comes to dealing with fiscal emergencies? They don't have to raise taxes. States do not have to lay off people. They don't have to go bankrupt. The federal taxpayer does not have to bail out these states. There's now another choice. The states can trim a little fat from their public sector union contracts, which is always their biggest expense. Isn't that good news?

There is way here that's been lighted. This ought to be joy. In the real world, where we're in fiscal trouble -- serious fiscal trouble -- here is a state which has shown a way out of it. I know. I'm whistling Dixie here because, as I said yesterday, the left doesn't care about that. They don't care about fiscal responsibility or sanity. They don't care about balanced budgets. They don't care about any of that. It's why there's no compromise with them.

Next they’ll learn that all those folks that think he’s a nice guy in over his head really think he’s a flaming assh*le in over his head.

Next they’ll learn that all those folks that think he’s a nice guy in over his head really think he’s a flaming assh*le in over his head.

Understatement well understood.......

The polling was not necessarily wrong. But, I'd bet my 401(k) that it was delivered incorrectly on purpose by the obaMEDIA in an attempt to bring out more liberal voters right up to the time the polls closed.

Polling place in Racine, WI (6/5/2012) showing American flag replaced with poster of Big Brother

This sounds suspiciously like what Roger Simon wrote late last night:

Return of the Bradley Effect: What if ALL the Polls Are Wrong?

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2012/06/06/return-of-the-bradley-effect/?singlepage=true

If they find out your voting for Romney you may get killed.

I remember in 2008 I was surrounded by African thugs yelling “Obama - Obama - Obama”, like a tribal chant when they saw the McNasty bumper sticker.

I'll be carrying some Louisville wood in the car from July to February. I have a feeling they wont be satisfied chanting this year.

I suspect a significant percentage of people lie to pollsters--particularly exit pollsters, because it is intimidatory in some neighborhoods to even be questioned about how you voted, and somewhat impertinent, anyway.

Maybe the best course, if some clown approaches you as an exit pollster, is that you call for the Police. That might inhibit the practice, which only serves to allow the news media to shape what people are talking about--to make news rather than actually report it.

William Flax

OK he has an excellent point about exit polls but there’s two things I don’t understand:

1. If networks were relying on the exit polls, why did they expect to be able to call the race at 10 p.m.? If the exit polls were right, it was going to be a very long night.

2. All his points about exit polls being inaccurate are very good. Especially important is that the same exit polls Obama folks are touting today were so flawed in predicting the actual vote result.

However, the regular polling, on average, got the race pretty much right. I think the RCP average yesterday was +6, pretty close to the actual result. So the exit polls vs. actual results don’t speak to any problem with regular polls, although regular polls may have other flaws.

King David and Jesus both came from....Jerusalem.

The accused and his attorney in court are....the defendant.(Answer had to have three "E's" as in "defense")

Again needs 3 E's...selected from a larger work...What is annotated....should have been "excerpted."

Wolf Blitzerrrrrr....Suuuuperrrrrrr Geniussss!

Once I realized that most polls are designed to shape public opinion, I started lying to pollsters.

We need to make this a national Conservative Movement. LIE to the polls! I will always flat out LIE to any exit poll I might be a part of. Phone polls, if its Gallup, PU, et all, I'll lie to them too.

I remember 2006 when Pelosi won, I was at the polling station and outside democrats were in my face telling me to vote democrat. I told them I would so they wouldn’t slash my tires while I voted.

Imagine telling a black man outside the voting booth that your not going to vote for Obama. And then you have to walk to your car, alone? NO THANKS.

My boys go to a small private school in Oakland, I have the same sinking feeling you do re: next november. If Romney wins, there will be rioting in the streets.

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