As Election Tuesday marched, the stability of Hillary Clinton’s Rust Belt “fire wall” defense was clearly in doubt. As Ohio fell to Trump, and Michigan and Wisconsin poised to do the same, CNN’s Jake Tapper admitted that the experts obviously missed something. “We still don't know what's going to happen in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or New Hampshire,” he explained to his colleagues, “But Donald Trump is competitive in all four of them, and it is entirely possible that -- that there is a wave out there that the pollsters and the predictors and all the vote modelers did not see coming at all.”
Roughly 30 minutes later, Tapper reiterated his belief and seemed almost in awe of the night’s events. “Pollsters predicted that Hillary Clinton was going to have not just a victory, but that she was going to win an electoral landslide,” he stated, “Not only is that not happening, it is entirely possible that Donald Trump is truly redrawing the map the way that he said he was going to.”
Tapper seemed to tip his hat to Trump:
He was going to redraw up the map from Wisconsin, and Michigan, to Ohio, and Iowa and winning over those white-working class voters that feel the Democratic Party and Republican elites in Washington have ignored them for too long. Right now, he seems on his way to actually doing that. And in a word, it was Donald Trump versus almost all the experts and as of right now, it looks like Donald Trump was right.
His colleague Wolf Blitzer agreed, “Yeah, he's doing something amazing right now, as he himself said, ‘He said don't believe all those polls.’”
Transcript below:
CNN
Election Night in America
November 8, 2016
10:06:18 PM Eastern…
JAKE TAPPER: Let me just say again, we are still waiting for the results from these four firewall states, but I don't know what we're going to -- I mean, Hillary Clinton needs to hold on to these four. We still don't know what's going to happen in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or New Hampshire. But Donald Trump is competitive in all four of them, and it is entirely possible that -- that there is a wave out there that the pollsters and the predictors and all the vote modelers did not see coming at all.
…
10:40:30 PM Eastern
TAPPER: The markets don't like instability and they are also unsure of what Donald Trump is going do when it comes to trade, and we mentioned earlier that Dow futures were down 500, now they're down more than 600.
But we should really just take a moment here and look at this. Pollsters predicted that Hillary Clinton was going to have not just a victory, but that she was going to win an electoral landslide. Not only is that not happening, it is entirely possible that Donald Trump is truly redrawing the map the way that he said he was going to. He was going to redraw up the map from Wisconsin, and Michigan, to Ohio, and Iowa and winning over those white-working class voters that feel the Democratic Party and Republican elites in Washington have ignored them for too long. Right now, he seems on his way to actually doing that. And in a word, it was Donald Trump versus almost all the experts and as of right now, it looks like Donald Trump was right.
WOLF BITZER: Yeah, he's doing something amazing right now, as he himself said, “He said don't believe all those polls.”
…
