# How overdetermined is the cause of Hillary's loss? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 17, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284 "2016-11-17T20:56:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/1 "2016-11-17T20:56:22Z")
Back in 2000, when the margin of victory for Bush in Florida was just a few hundred votes, virtually anything could have been identified as the “cause” of Gore’s loss. Butterfly ballots, hanging chads, the Lewinski thing, Ralph Nader, Elian Gonzalez, Naomi Wolf, an actual butterfly flapping it’s wings, Floridians who meant to vote for Gore but just plain forgot. The margin was that narrow. This year, the margin was about 100,000 votes scattered over three states. Not nearly as close, but still. A hundred thousand out of 120 million plus votes. How many things can we identify that might have made the difference? Here are a few: [The asymmetry of the Double Negatives](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/barone-is-this-why-the-pollsters-failed/article/2607487) > [@](#): > > [T]his is the first presidential election since random sample polling began in 1935 in which most voters had negative feelings toward both major party candidates. > > Election analysts have had experience dealing with elections in which majorities have positive feelings about both nominees; that has usually been the case in contests which turn out to have been seriously contested. “Double positives,” people with positive feelings about both candidates, will usually split along partisan or perhaps ethnic lines, and ordinarily pretty evenly. > > But what about “double negatives”? The default assumption most of us have had, I suspect, is that they would split roughly evenly between the candidates. But that didn’t happen this year. According to the exit poll (current figures, which may be slightly revised), 18 percent of voters were “double negatives,” that is, had negative feelings toward both Clinton and Trump. Of these 18 percent, 49 percent voted for Trump and only 29 percent voted for Clinton, with 22 percent saying they picked another candidate or not answering. > > The Trump-Clinton split as a percentage of the entire electorate was 9 to 5 percent, a 4 percent margin. Assume that was the split in each target state, rather than the 7 to 7 percent under my default assumption. If you subtract 2 percent from each close state from Trump’s percentage and add it to Clinton’s, you have Clinton carrying Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which have 101 electoral votes. That would give Clinton a 329-209 majority in the Electoral College. This one flatters me. I was one of those “double negatives” who voted for Trump. You’re welcome. [Would Trump have won if there hadn’t been a vacancy on the Supreme Court?](http://hotair.com/archives/2016/11/14/would-trump-have-won-if-there-hadnt-been-a-vacancy-on-the-supreme-court/) > [@](#): > > Put those two factors together, the visceral fear Republicans felt of losing their long Supreme Court majority in the first weeks of a Clinton administration _and_ the fact that it created a compelling reason to back Trump despite his many loathsome qualities, and you come to the question in the headline. How many Trump-skeptics bit the bullet in the end and voted for him despite their misgivings, in the name of protecting a conservative Court? How many of them wouldn’t have voted for Trump, or wouldn’t have voted at all, if not for the Scalia vacancy? Sounds plausible to me. The way I see it, long standing precedents like Roe v Wade are safe even with a conservative majority. But the 5-4 Heller and McDonald decisions could easily be reversed by a liberal one. [Hillary Clinton’s Vaunted GOTV Operation May Have Turned Out Trump Voters](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clintons-vaunted-gotv-operation-may-have-turned-out-trump-voters_us_582533b1e4b060adb56ddc27) > [@](#): > > Volunteers for the Clinton campaign in Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina have reported that when reminding people to vote, they encountered a significant number of Trump voters. Anecdotal evidence points to anywhere from five to 25 percent of contacts were inadvertently targeted to Trump supporters. > > This is a big deal because when voters are engaged by a volunteer they are significantly more likely to cast a ballot in an election. To make matters worse, because Republicans had a non-existent ground game in many areas this cycle, this powerful reminder from a Clinton volunteer to get out and vote might have been the only personalized GOTV communication these Trump voters received. Again, plausible, though not well-sourced. [Negative social media helped win it for Trump](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/negative-social-media-helped-win-it-for-trump/article/2607256) > [@](#): > > A wave of negative tweets, Facebook posts, YouTubes and other social media aimed at Hillary Rodham Clinton helped turned enough voters against the Democrat to switch close states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida for President-elect Trump, according to a new analysis. Plausible? It sounds impressive to me, but I’m not a professional… What else? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/2 "2016-11-17T21:53:52Z")
I think it’s pretty simple. Trump promised change, Hillary promised not to change anything. There is a lot of dissatisfaction in this country. It really doesn’t matter what people are dissatisfied with, it’s the mood that that drives people to turnout for change. Both parties have a base that consistently votes for their candidate, that is if they vote. Dissatisfaction increases turnout and swings the tiny fraction of people who vote for the first time or switch the party they traditionally vote for. I don’t believe at all that people use logic and reason to pick a particular candidate. Supreme court nominations are the last thing on people’s minds just like most of the other political issues. They’ll turn out if they care enough about something, and emotion is the deciding factor for the small percentage of swing voters who make the difference in a close election. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/3 "2016-11-17T22:15:42Z")
\*\*TriPolar \*\*nailed it; people were sick and tired of being sick and tired (fed up with being fed up) and Hillary simply represented more of the same old same old. Trump, as awful as he was, at least promised something interesting and bizarre and unpredictable for once. I wouldn’t be surprised if some voted for him simply out of sheer morbid curiosity, too. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/4 "2016-11-18T02:27:30Z")
Hillary promised to put the coal industry out of business. They put her out of business. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/5 "2016-11-18T02:35:27Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Hillary promised to put the coal industry out of business. They put her out of business. That is a change she did promise. Maybe she was better off not promising any others. It does deny that charge that liberals look down on rural folk. In fact they don’t think about them at all. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/6 "2016-11-18T02:35:38Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Hillary promised to put the coal industry out of business. They put her out of business. The coal industry could put us all out of business. Coal is one of the least climate-friendly fuels out there if not the least. Telling coal miners that we’ll sacrifice the planet in exchange for their votes isn’t something that future generations will thank us for. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/7 "2016-11-18T02:49:36Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > The coal industry could put us all out of business. Coal is one of the least climate-friendly fuels out there if not the least. Telling coal miners that we’ll sacrifice the planet in exchange for their votes isn’t something that future generations will thank us for. Yeah. I got no idea why we’re worried about Putin and terrorism when those coal miners are still out there. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/8 "2016-11-18T03:00:53Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Hillary promised to put the coal industry out of business. They put her out of business. The coal industry is going out of business anyway. Hillary at least offered re-training to help people find new jobs. Trump just offers empty promises to bring the jobs back. The only way he could do that is to heavily regulate alternative energy to drive up the price. I thought it was accepted that Hillary doing far worse with high school educated whites (who make up 1/3 of the electorate) was the main reason she lost. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/9 "2016-11-18T03:20:15Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I thought it was accepted that Hillary doing far worse with high school educated whites (who make up 1/3 of the electorate) was the main reason she lost. Accepted by who? I suppose you mean the people who say only dumb racists would vote for Trump even though she did worse than Obama in almost every demographic group. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/10 "2016-11-18T03:41:43Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Accepted by who? I suppose you mean the people who say only dumb racists would vote for Trump even though she did worse than Obama in almost every demographic group. > **[Behind Trump’s victory: Divisions by race, gender, education](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/)** > > Donald Trump's win followed a campaign that revealed deep divisions that were as wide and in some cases wider than in previous elections. Romney won high school educated whites by 25 points, Trump won them by 39 point. This was somewhat negated by Trump doing worse among college educated whites. Trump did slightly better among minorities than Romney, but high school educated whites are what seemed to have let him win the midwest. Arguably since men moved 5 points to the right and women 1 point to the left, it was men in general. But mostly it seems to be high school educated white voters. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/11 "2016-11-18T11:19:58Z")
Historically, the incumbent party faces some headwinds after 2 terms, so Clinton was running against the baggage of Obama’s legacy, for better or worse. In 2016, with people being cynical and tribal, those headwinds were particularly stiff. And then there was Clinton’s own baggage as someone who’s been in public office and public life for 30-40 years, going back to her days in Arkansas. I forgot where I read it but someone wrote that the Democrats leaned on the false assumption that demography alone would help them win the presidency in the foreseeable future, which I think is a point that really gets to the essence of Clinton’s loss. Trump remained in the race not only because of Clinton’s personal problems but also because Obama, Democrats, and Hillary Clinton never identified with the white working class (working poor in a lot of cases) in the Rust Belt. And that’s probably because they believed that they didn’t really need to. They were wrong. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/12 "2016-11-18T11:25:34Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > The coal industry could put us all out of business. Coal is one of the least climate-friendly fuels out there if not the least. Telling coal miners that we’ll sacrifice the planet in exchange for their votes isn’t something that future generations will thank us for. I agree with this wholeheartedly, but coal miners still have families and futures like the rest of us and the communities in which coal mines and steel mills once provided livelihoods have now left behind a tidal wave of heroin addiction and socioeconomic dysfunction. While democrats were out fighting for the rights of undocumented immigrants to remain in the country, while they were trying to hash out bathroom rights for the transgendered, nobody was speaking to whites in these economically sensitive communities. Nobody except for Donald Trump. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/13 "2016-11-18T12:32:07Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I agree with this wholeheartedly, but coal miners still have families and futures like the rest of us and the communities in which coal mines and steel mills once provided livelihoods have now left behind a tidal wave of heroin addiction and socioeconomic dysfunction. While democrats were out fighting for the rights of undocumented immigrants to remain in the country, while they were trying to hash out bathroom rights for the transgendered, nobody was speaking to whites in these economically sensitive communities. Nobody except for Donald Trump. There are two ways to address the unemployed coal miners. One way would be to provide education credits for the displaced workers and their children or tax credits for light industry to move into the area or establish enterprise zones to encourage development, things like that. Another way would be to pander to the miners and tell them that you’ll bring their jobs back just like they were and that everyone is going back to burning coal. Unfortunately, pandering gets votes even though the promises are empty. Hillary wasn’t going to carry Kentucky and West Virginia no matter what. There was nothing she could have said or done that would made a difference. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/14 "2016-11-18T12:41:10Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > There are two ways to address the unemployed coal miners. One way would be to provide education credits for the displaced workers and their children or tax credits for light industry to move into the area or establish enterprise zones to encourage development, things like that. Another way would be to pander to the miners and tell them that you’ll bring their jobs back just like they were and that everyone is going back to burning coal. Unfortunately, pandering gets votes even though the promises are empty. > > Hillary wasn’t going to carry Kentucky and West Virginia no matter what. There was nothing she could have said or done that would made a difference. I live in the Rust Belt. Having watched a good 5-6 months of her ad campaign, I can say that there were very few messages that dealt with economics. And when she did, she talked about “new” energy, which is fine, but you need to explain to Rust Belt voters how you’re going to get them from point A (coal) to point B (new energy). She never did that. Not once. Clinton hardly ever reached out with a real rinse-and-repeat message to millennials or to white working class voters in the Midwest. This explains why the changes in poll numbers were almost always due to the fact that Donald became less popular, rather than she becoming more so. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/15 "2016-11-18T12:47:26Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I live in the Rust Belt. Having watched a good 5-6 months of her ad campaign, I can say that there were very few messages that dealt with economics. And when she did, she talked about “new” energy, which is fine, but you need to explain to Rust Belt voters how you’re going to get them from point A (coal) to point B (new energy). She never did that. Not once. > > Clinton hardly ever reached out with a real rinse-and-repeat message to millennials or to white working class voters in the Midwest. This explains why the changes in poll numbers were almost always due to the fact that Donald became less popular, rather than she becoming more so. I agree, she ran a piss poor campaign. She played the prevent defense for four quarters (or maybe she thought that playing the Four Corners for the entire game would endear her to North Carolina voters). She should have talked about specifics in her rallies. Doesn’t make for exciting speeches, but voters might have appreciated being addressed like adults. She could have had televised town halls in rural America, listening to and addressing their concerns. When textbooks are written on how not to run a presidential campaign, hers will be prominently featured. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/16 "2016-11-18T12:59:18Z")
It’s the argument I’ve seen on other sites. People will say “She didn’t run any positive ads.” To which others reply “Yes she did, just look at her website and online ads.” Similarly, the response to “She never put forth any policy positions” is “She had everything on her website.” The thing is, people aren’t going to go to a website to read policy papers or watch political ads. I’m sure as hell am not going to see any online ads with the bevy of anti-ad, anti-Java, anti-tracker, and so on stuff I run while on the internet and I doubt I’m alone. And though I don’t watch much live TV, the last few weeks were the perfect time to get a lot of viewers like me with the baseball playoffs and football. All the ads I ever remember seeing (or ones that I fast-forwarded through on the DVR) by Clinton were anti-Trump. There was not a single positive ad by either campaign. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/17 "2016-11-18T13:12:52Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > It’s the argument I’ve seen on other sites. People will say “She didn’t run any positive ads.” To which others reply “Yes she did, just look at her website and online ads.” Similarly, the response to “She never put forth any policy positions” is “She had everything on her website.” The thing is, people aren’t going to go to a website to read policy papers or watch political ads. I’m sure as hell am not going to see any online ads with the bevy of anti-ad, anti-Java, anti-tracker, and so on stuff I run while on the internet and I doubt I’m alone. And though I don’t watch much live TV, the last few weeks were the perfect time to get a lot of viewers like me with the baseball playoffs and football. All the ads I ever remember seeing (or ones that I fast-forwarded through on the DVR) by Clinton were anti-Trump. There was not a single positive ad by either campaign. I think people tune out the ads. I think what counts is getting into an area, _having something to say_, and getting on the local news. Listening to people and answering their questions. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/18 "2016-11-18T13:25:09Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > It’s the argument I’ve seen on other sites. People will say “She didn’t run any positive ads.” To which others reply “Yes she did, just look at her website and online ads.” Similarly, the response to “She never put forth any policy positions” is “She had everything on her website.” The thing is, people aren’t going to go to a website to read policy papers or watch political ads. I’m sure as hell am not going to see any online ads with the bevy of anti-ad, anti-Java, anti-tracker, and so on stuff I run while on the internet and I doubt I’m alone. And though I don’t watch much live TV, the last few weeks were the perfect time to get a lot of viewers like me with the baseball playoffs and football. All the ads I ever remember seeing (or ones that I fast-forwarded through on the DVR) by Clinton were anti-Trump. There was not a single positive ad by either campaign. Hillary Clinton, of all people, should know that voters are lazy thinkers, even the ones who support her. Her campaign was probably okay at mining data and getting out the vote, but it absolutely sucked when it came to communications and message. She failed to come up with a simple message that would resonate with real voters in 2016. Her campaign rested on her resume and credentials, and when her GOP opposition started using that history against her, she was really neck-deep in it then. She made the same mistake against Obama in 2008, and against Bernie in the primaries. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/19 "2016-11-18T14:46:36Z")
One of the main reasons she lost was because she practically ignored Michigan and Wisconsin, states which with a little more effort she might have taken. As many commenters have noted the Clinton inner circle was way too arrogant, believing they had the election all sewn up. (I except Bill Clinton from this criticism, I think he realized that more attention shoud have been paid to the Rust Belt, but clearly nobody was listening.) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284/20 "2016-11-18T14:51:14Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > [Behind Trump's victory: Divisions by race, gender and education](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/) > > Romney won high school educated whites by 25 points, Trump won them by 39 point. > > This was somewhat negated by Trump doing worse among college educated whites. Trump did slightly better among minorities than Romney, but high school educated whites are what seemed to have let him win the midwest. > > Arguably since men moved 5 points to the right and women 1 point to the left, it was men in general. But mostly it seems to be high school educated white voters. Sorry, I see what you are saying. I should have expected you’d have a reasoned explanation. You point out the largest demographic voting change for this go round but I still wouldn’t consider that the main reason he won, just a symptom of the larger circumstances. There were other changes, and small but significant changes among other demographics that combined could have turned it all the other way. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-overdetermined-is-the-cause-of-hillarys-loss/772284.md?page=2)