Analysis: Post from October 16, 2026

2d ago Oct 16, 2026 at 1:40 PM

Video transcript 2:44

Matt, you've been polling. You have two new polls out today. One showing that, in fact, Ken Paxton is winning in the state of Texas. Number two, you have Roger Marshall winning in Kansas, that race tighter than expected. As you go through your list, you're beginning to see things that maybe others are not seeing. Tell us about it. Well, Sean, I have a new book out called The Honoring of Ignorance. I'm going to say it again, The Honoring of Ignorance. What we've been seeing is The Honoring of Ignorance. No one's paying attention to the real numbers. In Georgia, as you said, 80 percent of the votes so far, early vote, are 50 age and over. They are voting Republican. All of this nonsense you've heard about young people storming the polls and you're going to change everything, it's not taking place. That's number one. Number two, Donald Trump is a single individual turning out the vote. He went to Alaska that has 600,000 registered voters. He makes the difference in Alaska in a close race with those few people. This man is doing more for the party than the whole party is doing for him. So I think this race is going to be a lot different, the Senate and the House. I see this thing as being much closer. I think the polls have been nonsense and we've been honoring ignorance. Let's start paying attention to the real numbers. Further, Matt, and I did read a new book and I urge people to get it because there's a lot of ignorance out there, but I will tell you this. We have talked for many, many elections about how bad the polling is and how right you are. Robert Cahaley is and John McLaughlin is and Rasmussen is and how the mainstream pollsters, they're off usually anywhere between five and eight points against Republicans. So I think that they clearly want to take away incentive and some of the energy and momentum from Republican candidates, but they had El Sayed winning by 20, 20 plus points in the Michigan primary, barely one by one. They had Francesca Hong up between 20 and 30 points. She lost that race by 3000 votes. This polling year has been the worst on record I've ever seen. And what I'm telling people, and I hope they listen to me, is don't pay attention to the pollsters, except for you. Well, I would say two last things. You had Katie on. Katie, don't worry about this. I knew Jodie Powell when he was press secretary for Jimmy Carter. You're going to do just fine. Don't worry. They're always that way. Number two, Donald Trump is the key to this thing. Everybody acts like the president has nothing to do with this and they're all running a different sort of campaign. It's all about the individual. Donald Trump is the turn out master and he's doing it this year and you're going to see it on election day.

Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.

AI Analysis

Machine-generated analysis of the post above on 2026-10-16. Not written by the author of the post.

Danger Level

None

Narcissistic State

Grandiose

Authorship

Uncertain

Intensity

35%

Authorship Analysis

Uncertain

Indicators:

No written text: the attribution concerns who selected the clip, not who wrote anything
Posted about 9:40 a.m. Eastern, inside working hours (no rally or travel listed for Oct 16)
Follows a first-person text post praising the same Hannity segment, which places the choice of content with him
Video retrieval and upload the morning after a broadcast is a typical staff task

Psychological Profile

▶ Traits

Big Five:

Extraversion

75%

Agreeableness

25%

Conscientiousness

50%

Neuroticism

45%

Openness

20%

Strongest facet: Assertiveness, shown by claiming sole credit for party turnout

Agency

85%

Communion

20%

Primary drive: validation

▶ Narrative

Role: Indispensable turnout engine carrying an ungrateful party · Arc: redemption · Contrasting: Mainstream pollsters and Republicans running campaigns apart from him

The turnout masterThe key to the midtermsGives more to the party than the party gives him

▶ State

Grandiose State

Trigger: Preemptive Attack — Defeat (Unfavorable midterm polling and the prospect of Republican losses; candidates distancing their campaigns from him)

Sentiment

+0.30

▶ Clinical

Malignant Narcissism:

Narcissistic

55%

Antisocial

10%

Paranoid

30%

Sadism

Defense Mechanisms:

splittingdenialprojectionidealizationrationalization

Cognitive Complexity:

Complexity

Parasocial Techniques:

Amplifying third-party praise so admiration arrives as independent expert testimonyPositioning a friendly pollster as the audience's trusted guide against 'ignorance'

Receipts

No contradictions with other posts detected yet.

The Hannity segment, posted a second time

Earlier in the same UTC day, a post in his own words had already reacted to this broadcast: "Great Pollster Matt Towery was fantastic on Sean Hannity tonight. Looking good for Republicans!" This post is the segment itself, uploaded at about 9:40 a.m. Eastern with no caption. The pattern is typed praise the night of the broadcast, then the clip the next morning. That suggests his reaction came first and someone pulled and uploaded the video during working hours. The video adds the specific praise his text had only pointed to.

What the clip says for him

Two of Towery's lines do most of the work: "This man is doing more for the party than the whole party is doing for him," and, at the close, "Donald Trump is the turn out master and he's doing it this year." Both make the leader the indispensable individual and the party a dependent that doesn't appreciate him. Towery also says, "Everybody acts like the president has nothing to do with this and they're all running a different sort of campaign." That voices a grievance the post never states in Trump's words: that midterm candidates are campaigning without him. Publishing it gets the complaint aired, and the credit claimed, in someone else's voice.

The Alaska passage refers to the Wasilla rally on the 13th: "He went to Alaska that has 600,000 registered voters. He makes the difference in Alaska in a close race." Three days later, a scheduled tour stop is recast as decisive. That is admiration for one specific recent act, which is the supply-seeking side of the post. It casts him as the Hero who carries everyone else, with a hint of a king owed more gratitude than his court gives.

Writing off the polls before the votes are counted

Most of the clip argues for ignoring unfavorable polls. Towery says "I think the polls have been nonsense," and Hannity says "don't pay attention to the pollsters, except for you." Hannity also gives the motive: mainstream pollsters "clearly want to take away incentive and some of the energy and momentum from Republican candidates." He names the approved firms: Cahaly, McLaughlin (Trump's own longtime pollster) and Rasmussen. This is splitting applied to data. Friendly firms are idealized, the rest are devalued and accused of bad intent, and evidence is sorted by source rather than by method.

The defense covers both outcomes. If Republicans underperform, the polls that predicted it were working to demoralize them. If Republicans overperform, the polls were "nonsense." Either way the frame holds, and that is the reason for the epistemic-closure flag. The clip is preemptive: it rebuts no specific poll. Its effect is to prepare the audience to dismiss whatever polling comes before election day. It also inflates the anticipated defeat into a hostile plan ("they clearly want"), which is mild paranoid coloring delivered through proxies.

The factual claims belong to the broadcasters, so they are discussed here and not entered as his. Alaska's roughly 600,000 registered voters matches the state's rolls. Three claims are unchecked here: the "80 percent" share of Georgia's early vote cast by people 50 and over, Abdul El-Sayed polling "20 plus" ahead and then "barely" winning the Michigan primary, and Francesca Hong polling "between 20 and 30 points" ahead and then losing by 3,000 votes. Two inferences in the segment don't follow from its own evidence even if those claims are true. Age does not establish party ("They are voting Republican"). And misses in Democratic primaries, where the polls overstated progressive candidates, are not evidence that general-election polls run "five and eight points against Republicans." That is cherry-picking: the examples are selected for vividness, not because they support the conclusion drawn from them.

How it links to the rest of the morning

"Ken Paxton is winning in the state of Texas" opens the clip, and on the same day he attacked Paxton's opponent in writing as "James TalaFREAKO." The clip puts a poll number behind that attack. Towery's aside, "Katie, don't worry about this... You're going to do just fine. Don't worry. They're always that way," is aimed at Katie Zacharia, named press secretary a week earlier. It most likely refers to hostile press coverage of her early briefings. So the post defends his appointee as well as himself, and it extends the loyalty frame to his own staff.

What the post shows and where it stops

The state shown is grandiose and expansive, built on anticipated defeat. Unfavorable midterm numbers are the likely pressure, and the response is to recruit a friendly expert to call them illegitimate. The hostility is limited to pollsters as a class and stays at the level of motive attribution. No person is singled out, nothing in the clip calls for action, and no one is described in subhuman terms. That keeps it in routine campaign messaging rather than mobilizing rhetoric. All of the spoken language belongs to Towery and Hannity, so the clip says nothing about his own speech or cognition.