[xenadu02]

The tl;dr is voter apathy in key midwest states. IIRC Trump underperformed but Clinton underperformed even more. It is difficult to say with certainty but the FBI letter probably cost her the election by slightly depressing turnout.

It also looks like the Republican effort to disenfranchise people by reducing early voting, voting hours, closing polling stations, enacting voter ID laws, purging voter rolls, etc has worked in the sense that it slightly reduced Dem turnout which was enough in this election. Their efforts to steal elections by gerrymandering themselves into power has also given them outsized control of the House and various state governments.

It is really embarrassing that the majority of the country votes D and the Rs have control over the government. It's pure subversion of democracy.

Russia certainly tried to influence the election but if it had been Obama running (or anyone charismatic) instead of Clinton it wouldn't have mattered; Trump would have lost by a huge EC margin.

I'm far more worried about the long-term damage to the country now that the FBI has once again become an open political weapon, and that Rs are unapologetically disenfranchising people in an attempt to maintain power permanently.

[LyndsySimon]

> Russia certainly tried to influence the election but if it had been Obama running (or anyone charismatic) instead of Clinton it wouldn't have mattered; Trump would have lost by a huge EC margin.

While I don't agree with a great deal of the rest of your assertions, this stands out to me as the important one. If the Democrats had run almost anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would have likely won.

They ran Hillary Clinton.

[losteric]

The DNC definitely backed the wrong horse in the Clinton vs Sanders primaries.

[hackuser]

> the FBI letter probably cost her the election by slightly depressing turnout.

Of course it's hard to point to one factor in such a complex, real world situation, But look at a chart of Clinton's poll numbers; she was comfortably ahead, and as soon as Comey's letter came out, her number dropped like a rock and never recovered.

> It is really embarrassing that the majority of the country votes D and the Rs have control over the government.

Note that the Democrats have won the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 national elections. Other than George W Bush's second election in 2004, the GOP hasn't won a nationwide majority since 1988.

[michaelchisari]

This was such a squeaker of an election, that it seems that any one of the multitude of factors changes, and Hillary wins.

[hackuser]

You could say the same the other way. A rainy day in a major city in a key state and Trump gets a better result.

[michaelchisari]

I'm limiting it to political events centered on the candidates, almost all of which in the near lead-up to the election were focused on Hillary. And the only really close states were PA, MI and WI, all of which went to Trump by a sliver.