# Was the election result really so surprising? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 11, 2016, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490 "2016-11-11T13:00:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/21 "2016-11-12T21:27:32Z")
I figured that a Trump victory would be precipitated by a sizable percentage of people voting for third party candidates. There were a few states where that was the case, but I expected it to be much larger. Here’s a [Change.org](http://Change.org) petition you can sign, encouraging EC voters to possibly go faithless and choose Hillary. > **[Sign the Petition](https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19-2017?recruiter=702074&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_page&utm_term=des-lg-no_src-custom_msg)** > > Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/22 "2016-11-12T21:46:02Z")
I was not particularly surprised that so many Americans could be so shortsighted as to elect Trump (disappointed, but not surprised). I was, however, rather surprised that the polls so thoroughly failed to capture the situation. And since the polls happened before the election, this manifested itself as the election being surprising. Yes, I knew that there was the possibility of the polls being significantly and systematically wrong, and that there have been few enough elections that there’s a limit at how low that probability could reasonably be set at. And I believed that Silver’s model made the correct choice to equally weight the possibility of significant systematic errors in both directions. But I had what I thought were good reasons to believe that the errors would be more likely to work the other way, and that Silver’s model thus underestimated Clinton’s chances. And either I was wrong in this belief, or an improbable event went ahead and happened anyway, as they occasionally do. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/23 "2016-11-12T22:07:45Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I was shocked. And stunned. Same here. Now I’m just disappointed so I console myself with snark. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/24 "2016-11-12T22:09:18Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > \*\*Was the election result really so surprising? > > \*\*Because Donald Trump is utterly unqualified to be the President of the United States, and the American people were generally thought intelligent enough to see that. ^ This. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/25 "2016-11-12T22:22:15Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Agreed, but my point is there was warning. I remarked to some friends on Tuesday, "Trump would need to take every important state. If he loses just one - Ohio, Florida or a couple others it’s over. I was disappointed, but not shocked, when Trump took states like Florida and North Carolina where he had been close. What stunned me was when he took states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania which were not supposed to even be on the table. What is still incomprehensible to me is how Trump could have won in a First World, relatively well-educated country that by any objective standard wasn’t really in bad shape. (Anything going on now pales before what was happening in the sixties.) > [@Rigamarole](#): > > Hillary, however, vaguely alienated half the country with her “deplorables” comment. Anybody who felt that the deplorables comment might apply to them wasn’t going to vote for Hillary anyway. ---
**Author:** ![D-Snake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@D-Snake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D-Snake)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/26 "2016-11-12T22:30:40Z")
Frankly, I was terrified by this election. I saw two undesirable candidates in the major parties and several third-party candidates that were being marginalized by the media. I didn’t want Trump or Hillary. I’ll echo an earlier poster who said that the most charismatic candidate will likely win, by saying that unqualified celebrities are often selected by the American people. Remember Reagan, remember Arnold S. Trump was nothing but a celebrity, trouble was that Hillary was a semi-celebrity herself because of Bill and his antics (a woman scorned, first female president). I knew it would be close. It could have gone either way, but the Trump team knew how to stimulate the electoral votes, even though Hillary was more popular, as was shown by the popular vote. Am I disappointed? Sure. I would have been if either of these two candidates won. But there’s no use crying over spilled milk, and the temper tantrums shown by the public are worthless and embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/27 "2016-11-12T22:30:53Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Anybody who felt that the deplorables comment might apply to them wasn’t going to vote for Hillary anyway. Most likely. But I’d wager that a small percentage of those folks WERE MORE MOTIVATED to actually get off their asses and actually vote than they before they were called deplorable. Also, some small percentage that weren’t going to vote or not inclined towards Trump probably decided to vote out of spite due to name calling. So, the deplorable comment 1 Pissed off non deplorables and probably upped their voting. 2 Pissed off actual deplorables and probably upped their voting. 3 Pissed off some non Trump deplorable/non deplorables enough for them to vote for Trump out of spite. Yeah, that was a good idea. Given how close the election was in a couple of key states, that alone might have been enough to topple the scales right there. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/28 "2016-11-12T23:04:34Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Given how close the election was in a couple of key states, that alone might have been enough to topple the scales right there. Bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/29 "2016-11-12T23:07:23Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Bullshit. Do some math. Make some assumptions. Then get back to us. Are you saying it helped? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/30 "2016-11-12T23:19:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And either I was wrong in this belief, or an improbable event went ahead and happened anyway, as they occasionally do. To be fair, and improbable and unpredictable event did occur: the announcement by Director Comey that the FBI was reopening the investigation into emails by the Clinton campaign on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. The announcement came late enough that public response did not factor clearly into most polls, and while it ultimately (and frankly, obviously) did not reveal any new information, the allegations were sufficient to influence voters who were already in doubt about Clinton’s integrity, eroding the slender margins that the polls were already showing. As noted in the [FiveThirtyEight.com](http://FiveThirtyEight.com) discussion, the estimates that assumed that a Trump win were unlikely were based upon the premise that vote shifts in swing states occur independently, whereas the factors that influence one state to swing will also act similarly on other states, so even the path to a win requires a rigid sequence of shifts, the odds are that if one state goes culturally similar states will also swing. The nearly 1 in 3 chance for Trump that [FiveThirtyEight.com](http://FiveThirtyEight.com) was predicting should have been a wake up call to anyone who thought the Clinton win was in the bag. Even with that, however, the loss of Wisconsin, Michigan and (less so) Pennsylvania was not really expected by any model, suggesting systematic polling error or ‘silent’ voters as well as uncertainty by a significant number of voters which way they would go. > [@billfish678](#): > > Given how close the election was in a couple of key states, that alone might have been enough to topple the scales right there. This election never should have been so close that a comment offensive only to the hardcore Trump supporters should have made any statistically significant difference. The failing here was as much hubris by the Clinton campaign as it was the angry mood of the voters; Clinton depended on her urban and suburban base of traditionally Democratic voters as well as the people that should have been offput by Trump’s barefaced bigotry. She didn’t make a real effort to appeal to the ‘Bernie’ contingent by selecting a running mate who didn’t have the stink of banking money on her, nor any real outreach to minority voters. Instead, she picked a running mate who wouldn’t outshine her, but also who didn’t appeal to anyone that wasn’t already going to vote for her. I’m sure it would be dangerous to suggest having a two-woman ticket, but the people who wouldn’t vote for that weren’t going to vote for Clinton anyway, and having Elizabeth Warren on the ticket might have swayed the signficant block of female and younger voters who decided to abstain rather than vote for someone who made millions of dollars in speaking fees speaking one way to corporate interests which was at odds with her campaign talk. Doubling down on a progressive running mate, and making it clear that she would be viewed as an equal in policy discussion would have gone a long way to courting the apathy of the tradiational base that decided to sit this election out or vote for the unwinnable Stein. Which is fine; it leaves Warren free and clear to run in 2020 without carrying the failure of this election. And I hope to fuck that she does run because it will put paid to the notion that Clinton failed because we can’t elect a woman as president, rather than failing because we couldn’t stand the idea of Hillary as president. Clinton is a canny political operator (she certainly bears a large measure of responsibility in getting Bill Clinton elected multiple times) and was at least a capable senator, but as this campaign demonstrated, she was not seen as personally appealing even by some of her most enthusiastic advocates, and angry, fearful people do not want to hear about policy or facts. It’s shitty, but it’s the reality of humanity. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/31 "2016-11-12T23:26:15Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > This election never should have been so close that a comment offensive only to the hardcore Trump supporters should have made any statistically significant difference. The failing here was as much hubris by the Clinton campaign as it was the angry mood of the voters; r Like Colin Powell said. She messed up what she touched with her hubris. She barely lost. By barely loosing a couple of swing states. A few minor things she did / did wrong is probably what made the difference. BUTTT IMO all those things were basically her own fault. Same as if Trump had barely lost. You’d be able to say a handful of those stupid ass tweets were what tipped the scales. And they would be his fault. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/32 "2016-11-12T23:54:39Z")
Donald Trump is charismatic? I think he’s disgusting. I have never liked him, and I grew to detest him during the campaign. I can’t believe someone could call him charismatic. Personally, I really like Hillary Clinton, and was excited about voting for her. She lost, because there are still a lot of people who think you need a penis to be president. ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/33 "2016-11-12T23:58:32Z")
It was not surprising to me at all ! I been saying Trump was going to win for awhile . But this didn’t made it any easier for me , I was hoping I was dead wrong ! ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/34 "2016-11-13T00:49:54Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Donald Trump is charismatic? I think he’s disgusting. I have never liked him, and I grew to detest him during the campaign. I can’t believe someone could call him charismatic. “Charismatic” and “Disgusting” are not mutually exclusive. If he wasn’t charismatic, you wouldn’t have grown to detest him. You would have grown to not care about him. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/35 "2016-11-13T00:53:59Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Donald Trump is charismatic? I think he’s disgusting. I have never liked him, and I grew to detest him during the campaign. I can’t believe someone could call him charismatic. > > Personally, I really like Hillary Clinton, and was excited about voting for her. > > She lost, because there are still a lot of people who think you need a penis to be president. Not so much charismatic, because he isn’t, as that he has name recognition. As for needing a penis to be president, I really don’t think all that many people refused to vote for Hillary because she’s a woman. There are a lot of people who just didn’t want her to be POTUS; FTR, I did vote for her but my vote was really against Trump and for Tim Kaine, whom I really like based on what I know about him. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/36 "2016-11-13T01:03:29Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Donald Trump is charismatic? I think he’s disgusting. I have never liked him, and I grew to detest him during the campaign. I can’t believe someone could call him charismatic. > > Personally, I really like Hillary Clinton, and was excited about voting for her. > [@leahcim](#): > > “Charismatic” and “Disgusting” are not mutually exclusive. If he wasn’t charismatic, you wouldn’t have grown to detest him. You would have grown to not care about him. Indeed. If you honestly think that Hillary has more _personal charisma_ than Trump (or Bernie, for that matter), you’re either a complete idiot, autistic, or so blinded by your political biases that you are simply unable to see it. Out of curiosity, do you think that either Al Gore or John Kerry were more charismatic than GWB? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/37 "2016-11-13T01:27:15Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Personally, I really like Hillary Clinton, and was excited about voting for her. > > She lost, because there are still a lot of people who think you need a penis to be president. You may personally like Hillary Clinton but [both Clinton and Trump](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/) are disliked by voters at a record-breaking degree. Misogyny toward female candidates in general is estimated to affect about 3-5% of voters, and that likely crosses heavily with people already inclined to vote for Trump anyway. Attributing Clinton’s loss to an unwillingness to vote for a female candidate dangerously misses the point. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![MemoryLeak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@MemoryLeak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MemoryLeak)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/38 "2016-11-13T02:46:28Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Obviously you weren’t paying attention during the election of 2004. George W. Bush, with the way he bungled up everything from Iraq to Enron to stem cell research, a man who publicly said “I don’t care where Osama bin Laden is,” and who had proven time and again how incapable he was of leading a cub scout troop, let alone a powerful nation, was clearly the most unfit choice our nation had ever seen. AND PEOPLE RE-ELECTED HIM ANYWAY. > > In the wise words of Agent K: **“A person is smart. _People_ are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”** This election result does not surprise me at all. Enron performed most of its magic during Clinton’s presidency. The shenanigans were exposed during 2001 and it began its long bankruptcy at the end of that year. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/39 "2016-11-13T07:05:18Z")
Trump had NEGATIVE charisma for me. Every time he opened his mouth he sounded to me like a child actor playing a stereotypical NYC mafia thug. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2016, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490/40 "2016-11-13T09:30:29Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > You may personally like Hillary Clinton but [both Clinton and Trump](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/) are disliked by voters at a record-breaking degree. … Attributing Clinton’s loss to an unwillingness to vote for a female candidate dangerously misses the point. I think this is correct in looking at the numbers from afar. Mrs Clinton was never very charismatic, any objective observer had to admit this - she lost to Barack Obama for this reason and her bad skills at the public campaigning. > [@Rigamarole](#): > > Also, people continue to underestimate the role that **charisma** plays in electing a president. It’s by far the most important thing in determining the outcome. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say: > > **The more _charismatic_ candidate _almost always_ wins, regardless of party, policy, promises, or anything else.** \* yes, it is also the case outside of the US where there is some kind of direct competition of a comparable kind. People are people. > [@](#): > > \*this is also why Bernie would have won where Hillary failed. Bernie has a force of personality, and is actually likable. This is an assertion that seems in no way supported by an evidence other than your personal preference, making a mirror image mistake of those who are claiming Mrs Clinton lost only because she is a woman, ignoring her non-charisma and limited appeal outside of a certain base. From afar he seems like an angry man and not very convincing if you are not of the hard Left. In the primary season unlike the comparable challenger, Barack Obama against Mrs Clinton, he was unable to sufficiently motivate outside of his core white american Left audience. But that he did very well against her despite not I think outside of a narrow base - a different one from Mrs Clinton said already her approach was wrong, her instincts for the campaigning were wrong and weak, and she was deaf to the criticisms of her style and could not change them. So this ties to this comment, wisely put by Stranger > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The failing here was as much hubris by the Clinton campaign as it was the angry mood of the voters; Clinton depended on her urban and suburban base of traditionally Democratic voters as well as the people that should have been offput by Trump’s barefaced bigotry. … Instead, she picked a running mate who wouldn’t outshine her, but also who didn’t appeal to anyone that wasn’t already going to vote for her. I’m sure it would be dangerous to suggest having a two-woman ticket, but the people who wouldn’t vote for that weren’t going to vote for Clinton anyway, and having Elizabeth Warren on the ticket might have swayed the signficant block of female and younger voters who decided to abstain rather than vote for someone who made millions of dollars in speaking fees speaking one way to corporate interests which was at odds with her campaign talk. Doubling down on a progressive running mate, and making it clear that she would be viewed as an equal in policy discussion would have gone a long way to courting the apathy of the tradiational base that decided to sit this election out or vote for the unwinnable Stein. > > Which is fine; it leaves Warren free and clear to run in 2020 without carrying the failure of this election. And I hope to fuck that she does run because it will put paid to the notion that Clinton failed because we can’t elect a woman as president, rather than failing because we couldn’t stand the idea of Hillary as president. Clinton is a canny political operator (she certainly bears a large measure of responsibility in getting Bill Clinton elected multiple times) and was at least a capable senator, but as this campaign demonstrated, she was not seen as personally appealing even by some of her most enthusiastic advocates, **and angry, fearful people do not want to hear about policy or facts. It’s shitty, but it’s the reality of humanity.** the emphasis added. I do not have any opinion on Warren (and am so intensely interested in this because of the great impact the USA election will have in my world), but it is surely the grand lesson of the events of the Brexit and this American election, that the cold bloodless approach of the technocrat to the political campaign for the highly emotional and the highly contested issues is a failure. It is a failure also of the technocratic to recognize some real limitations to the models, in a way similar to the failure of the quant models of the 2008 crisis - not that these things have no validity, no utility - but there is a gross over-estimation of the reliability of the tools, of the certainty of the numbers, and the solidity of the data which leads to the ignoring of the Error Potential and under-estimating of the risks. It is better to acknowledge this and be humbler about ‘the big data’ than to throw it all out. and for the political classes, often not very numerate, a cold shower for them. I hope the American opposition will not go the way of the British labor but will look at the broad charismatic appeal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-election-result-really-so-surprising/771490.md?page=3)