How the Election Was Won

A Feminist might say, “Hillary lost because she is a woman”. Someone else might say it was the private e-mail server. Still others go with Russian interference, FBI interference, or her bad reputation. Choosing the straw that broke the camel’s back depends on your viewpoint. There are many such straws.

We often hear that America is relatively evenly divided politically. About 1/3 of the voters are hard-and-fast Republicans, and about 1/3 are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. They will vote their party no matter what. So an election comes down to the so-called independents or swing voters. In recent years (since 2000) presidential election results have been very close. So how does this middle third decide?

Sometimes quite diverse groups will find themselves on the same side of an issue or candidate. Prohibition became a constitutional amendment partially because of this phenomenon and provides some insight. For example these two sets of divergent groups were in favor of prohibition:

• Business leaders (Ford, Carnegie, et al.) thought alcohol undercut the output of workers while the Industrial Workers of the World thought alcohol was part of a capitalist plot to weaken the working man.
• Booker T. Washington thought alcohol undermined black progress while white Southerners thought alcohol turned black people into goons.

But I digress.

Much of the swing in swing voters is predictable. One prominent example is that after two terms of one party in the White House, there is a desire to favor the other party. Professor Allan Lichtman understands this and has created a 13-factor history-based check list that has successfully predicted the winner of a presidential election for the last 30 years. He predicted a Trump win in September of 2016.

So let’s look at some other factors that were in play in 2016.

White backlash. Being polite, let’s say there were some people who were uncomfortable with a black president.

Gender preference. Many folks are not ready for a woman president.

Backlash against perceived Democratic Party overreach (Think Obamacare).

White working class (WWC) feeling threatened by technological change, their shrinking fraction of the population and, therefore, immigration.

The tendency of voters to ignore policy and “go with their gut” was extraordinarily important in 2016 and will be examined in a future blog post.

Then there is a whole basket of media-related influences:

• Media false equivalence, i.e. both parties do it. Paraphrasing Paul Krugman during the George W. Bush years, “If the president said ‘the earth is flat’, it would be reported as ‘opinions differ on shape of the planet’”.
• Media lives and dies on ratings. Trump got gobs (reportedly $1.9 billion worth) of free TV coverage because he was entertaining to watch. People are distracted by shiny objects.
• Related to the above is the cult of celebrity. Will all future candidates need to be telegenic and entertaining?
• The influence of TV’s blurring of reality and fantasy.
• The decline in responsible journalism. In the 24-hour news cycle, there is such a rush for the “exclusive scoop” that rumors and errors are reported. They may be walked back later but first impressions are hard to change.

As I said above, which straw that tipped the election depends on your viewpoint but there was one heavy straw. The specter of more Clinton e-mails put forward by FBI director James Comey a few days before the election had to have a huge impact, even though it was found to be a nothingburger. Remember, first impressions are hard to change.