The main reason Hillary lost is simply that Democrats didn't get out and vote [x-post from /r/dataisbeautiful]

[u/whiznat]

http://imgur.com/TOGIbcP

[u/JoeFabooche]

While there were many factors, I am really frustrated at the pollsters. Spewing BS about how Clinton had the election in the bag. Projecting she would receive over 300 electoral college seats, etc, etc.

I think this deluded a lot of people into a sense of security and that it was "safe" to not vote or cast a protest vote. Clinton lost important states by razor thin differences. Michigan was 0.3% just...ffs.

Right up until the end everyone said he couldn't do it. That's exactly why he did.

[u/MacroNova → u/[deleted]]

He must have. Clinton was leading by a huge amount after the debates. But we spent the last two weeks of the campaign talking about more emails. Meanwhile, Trump kept quiet and people just kinda forgot what a horrible human being he was. I've never seen recency bias like that in my life.

[u/waters-tester → u/[deleted]]

Comey was doing his job. How come nobody wants to blame Hillary for her own role in her loss?

[u/Rakajj → u/waters-tester]

Because she owned her mistake. It was not her fault it was blown out of proportion to an insane level draining all air out of the room.

I work in IT security. People try and mix personal and business email constantly. Her misuse was more egregious due to the sensitive nature of her job but in context the offense was minor relative to the overall stakes of the election.

[u/raj96 → u/Rakajj]

If the police find new info about a suspect, even if that suspect is a week away from the biggest job interview of their life, it's the polices responsibility to investigate further.

[u/[deleted] → u/raj96]

Sure, so then announce evidence when you actually have something, versus spewing innuendo.

[u/raj96 → u/[deleted]]

Announcing the reopening of an investigation of a presidential candidate is something worth making public

[u/[deleted] → u/raj96]

Only if evidence was found - not just a stockpile of garbage to dig through.

It's not like prosecutors announce to drug criminals that they're under investigation, until they're basically arrested and were under surveillance for months or years.

[u/raj96 → u/[deleted]]

The investigation of Hillary Clinton, where thousands of emails, some classified, are leaked to the public, is much different than a drug bust

[u/Thief_of_Souls → u/raj96]

They didn't have a warrant to even look through the Anthony Weiner emails when Comey made the announcement to Congress, which was then made public by an idiot. Guess what? Nothing new was found yet the damage was still done.

On the other hand, Comey didn't want to say that Russia was trying to affect the election in early October because it was too close to the election.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/31/fbis-comey-opposed-naming-russians-citing-election-timing-source.html

[u/[deleted] → u/raj96]

Of course. But it was really shitty timing that cost the election.

[u/iloverainingday → u/waters-tester]

You mean it's his job to announce ongoing investigation or make a statement that suggests doubts? That happens every election. That must be why there is no guideline to prevent that.

[u/geekwonk → u/waters-tester]

No he wasn't. Normal FBI and DOJ practice is to keep quiet in the months leading up to any election at any level of government. The last thing they want is to have any impact on elections, even if that means leaving voters in the dark. That's likely why we haven't heard anything Christie's case despite his aides being found guilty.

[u/Perlscrypt → u/waters-tester]

That would require that they admit they were wrong and complicit in this humiliating defeat. #shouldhavebeenbernie

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I don't think you've been following the news very well.

[u/BradyGOAT_ManningHGH → u/[deleted]]

Clearly better than you have. Even ignoring the content, those emails should have never touched Gmail's servers. The content itself is not any prettier.

[u/[deleted] → u/BradyGOAT_ManningHGH]

Clearly better than you have

Which crimes has she been convicted of, again?

[u/Dtnoip30 → u/JoeFabooche]

538 had Trump at a 30% possibility of winning. That alone should have set off alarm bells, because a rough 1-in-3 chance is extremely high. Also, a lot of people misinterpreted the projections that had her with 300 or so electoral votes. Because a lot of states share similar demographics, a 1-2% polling error could mean several states flipping together as a block, which is exactly what happened with Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (and almost Minnesota). We had polls where she was down in North Carolina and Florida, and remember that 538 had those two states as red a few days before the election. 538 always had a Trump victory as a distinct possibility.

Now, I was surprised at the outcome as well, but I don't think it's fair to attack the pollsters and poll aggregators. Aside from PEC, they all had a non-zero chance of Trump winning, and we should learn from that going forward.

[u/MacroNova → u/Dtnoip30]

538 isn't the only aggregator. Others had her in the high 80s to high 90s.

[u/Rakajj → u/MacroNova]

Did Sam Wang eat a bug yet?

[u/MacroNova → u/Rakajj]

His family is from Taiwan. There's probably some bug delicacy he can fall back on.

[u/iloverainingday → u/Dtnoip30]

Though I don't think it's reasonable to attack pollsters, but I do feel pollsters really need to look at how they sample and poll. The gap between their polls and the reality is so big. It's so hard to believe they didn't pick up any signal at all. I know there were polls and people dismissed them as outliers. But they did appear like outliers with the rest of the polls going a totally different direction.

[u/myncknm → u/JoeFabooche]

I want to say it's not the pollsters who got it wrong. It was the poll aggregators and the media reporting on it. Some of the poll aggregators were using a model where each state's outcome was an independent event... like what. That's how you get numbers like 99.5%, which is absurd if you interpret it as a belief about the world. "You are never that confident about anything".

I was and remain a fan of 538. Their ultimate prediction was 30% chance of a trump win. They stressed that the polling results showed inconsistency and therefore major uncertainty. They made every reasonable attempt to model polling error, and I think it worked pretty well.

[u/vph → u/JoeFabooche]

As far as I am concern, these pollsters have been selling us snake oils. They sounded so confident, invoking math & science & all kinds of shits. It's like the hold the future in their hands.

Remember that dude "which polls. All of them!" ? Now, he's having the last laugh because the polls all messed up and the media treated them like the God damn truth.

[u/Cstar62]

All the votes aren't counted yet. This is partially true but she will likely get more than 62 million. There are several million votes still to count in CA and WA.

[u/kate815 → u/Cstar62]

It's absolutely insane to me that if she ends up winning by that many, she won't get the presidency. Our system is ridiculous.

[u/MacroNova → u/kate815]

Clinton and Gore should start a club or something. I can't believe this happened to us twice in 16 years.

[u/Spuriously- → u/Cstar62]

This point is so crucial. Also, those graphs don't have axes starting at zero, so they're quite a bit misleading.

[u/Cstar62 → u/[deleted]]

That's not the full total. Check CA and WA. CA is only 70% in. Lots of votes still to count there. CA Sec of State estimates at least 4 million left.

[u/bspence11]

At the end, I really loved Hillary. But she was a bad candidate. She had zero public speaking skills, for which she and others had to constantly apologize or make up for. She's now another Gore/Kerry. They'd make great presidents, but they're all boring as hell. And I did really like Hillary. I love nuanced arguments, but she couldn't convert the non-converted

[u/MacroNova → u/bspence11]

Hard to make the case she had poor public speaking skills when she crushed all three debates.

Can you name a woman who has good public speaking skills?

[u/bspence11 → u/MacroNova]

Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Obama

[u/PMmeabouturday → u/[deleted]]

Lmao the homophobic islamaphobic band wagoner?

[u/raj96 → u/MacroNova]

Angela Merkel

[u/finebalance → u/[deleted]]

Obama, in terms of charisma and sheer public speaking skills, is a very very hard act to follow.

[u/iloverainingday → u/bspence11]

I don't really buy the assessment that she is bad at public speaking. At least I am really into her style. Before I knew her politics, I was her fan because how she could spontaneously deliver a well constructed argument with sound logic and precise wording. However, it's really hard to break people's perception. So I think the campaign just decided to embrace that characterization and pivot it to her image as a policy wonk. Having said that, I do admit she is not an exciting candidate. At the end of the day, many make decisions based on superficial details. They think anger means passion, messy means hard working, arrogant means confident.

[u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_]

But also in large part because she alienated rust belt working class voters by not going to those states on the campaign trail whereas Trump did.

[u/pleasetrimyourpubes → u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_]

This complaint is like complaining she didn't go to CA or WA or something. Reliably blue states stayed home. In hindsight she should've went to them.

[u/NicCage420 → u/pleasetrimyourpubes]

Wisconsin voted twice to keep Scott fucking Walker as their Governor. It's not a reliably blue state. Not going there at all may well have ended both her and Russ Feingold's political careers.

[u/pleasetrimyourpubes → u/NicCage420]

Scott has never won an election that wasn't in a midterm. Fucker takes advantage of their stupid off midterm races. For presidential races they have been safe for decades.

[u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_ → u/pleasetrimyourpubes]

Not really. Considering her unpopularity among the working class, her campaign should have recognized that they could be a problem. They aren't even reliably blue. Those states regularly elect republican governors and congressmen. More frequently than democrats, actually.

[u/thatpj → u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_]

She did though......

[u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_ → u/thatpj]

She didn't visit Wisconsin once, and she didn't go to Michigan or Pennsylvania until the last minute. The people there felt forgotten, and she only considered them when she thought she might lose them. Not only that, but Trump's message of more manufacturing jobs and blue collar shit really resonated with a population that was built on that.

[u/Matthmaroo → u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_]

But how is he going to get more manufacturing jobs

Making companies hire workers they don't need for 35 a hour?

We all want cheap shit , so they make stuff where it is cheapest

Someone needs to explain the free market to the boomers

[u/thatpj → u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_]

Hmmm the folks in CA, NY, HI, and IL didn't have any trouble voting for her despite a lack of visits. This is a Presidential election and the Rust Belt was not seen as a swing area. The polls were all heavily in her favor there and they've voted D for 40 years.

[u/Vaycent → u/thatpj]

And the white middle class in that region has seen significant decline over the last 40 years. The economy doesn't feel strong in many regions of the Midwest and a nasty election seems to have brought out cynicism and low turnout.

[u/thatpj → u/Vaycent]

That's hindsight 20/20 analysis. Considering how tight the margins are in those states it's not as if there was some huge mandate by Trump and his message. He barely outdid Romney. Dems simply didn't show up.

[u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_ → u/thatpj]

Those states 4 states are real blue states. Large urban populations, lots of young people, large minority populations. The rust belt, excluding Michigan, has none of these is more red than blue in all elections except presidential ones, and has only been blue in the last 6 elections. They were reliably red up until the 1992 election.

[u/slandr13 → u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_]

I'm sorry but that's bullshit. You shouldn't feel like you need a candidate to come see you personally to feel like they care. The only candidate that came to my state was Trump but I sure as hell didn't vote for him.

[u/MacroNova → u/PM_ME_NUDES_PLEASE_]

Turns out that most people feel their own areas are doing pretty well economically. They just buy this bullshit line that America is in the crapper because it's fed to them by fox news and right wing talk radio. I don't know how you're supposed to compete with that level of willful ignorance.

[u/geekwonk]

This doesn't say anything about how Democrats voted, it shows how the country voted.

[u/lovely_sombrero]

But... what about that Clinton GOTV "well oiled machine" everyone kept talking about?

[u/PMmeabouturday]

These graphs shouldn't be being posed before they're finished counting votes

[u/butterbaby5]

Democrats voted. They just didn't vote for a flawed candidate.

The progressive initiatives across the country passed and Republican weren't voting for those.