> Because those people saw him as lesser evil compared to Clinton? If there was another not-Clinton candidate, they'd have voted for him/her.
As a Trump voter - but not a Republican - this pretty much sums it up. His SCOTUS list and the formation of his "Second Amendment Coalition" nudged me from the "he's better than Clinton" to the "maybe he'll deliver something I want" column, but there are no circumstances where I would have voted Clinton.
> It'd be interesting to see Sanders vs Trump in parallel universe.
I think it would have been a slaughter in that case, instead of the squeaker it was. Trump's biggest challenge was winning over the libertarian wing of the GOP. If he were against Sanders, that part of the party would have been locked down from day one.
I think it is generally underappreciated how bad of a candidate Clinton was. Many people for good reason were frustrated by the status quo of politics and the Democrats would probably have had a hard time to find someone playing more into this. Her entire platform seemed to be to continue what already was happening except that she will be there first female president; she was heavily associated with a previous president; the way she and the Democratic party treated Sanders played badly into her being the heartless, corrupt establishment. I don't think I met anyone who really was excited to vote for Clinton her entire virtue was not being Trump. I'm honestly certain that pretty much anyone could have beaten Trump except Clinton.
It also shows to me how broken the US election system is. We badly need something like approval voting. It's unacceptable that we ended up was two candidates who both had awful approval ratings.
As a Trump voter - but not a Republican - this pretty much sums it up. His SCOTUS list and the formation of his "Second Amendment Coalition" nudged me from the "he's better than Clinton" to the "maybe he'll deliver something I want" column, but there are no circumstances where I would have voted Clinton.
> It'd be interesting to see Sanders vs Trump in parallel universe.
I think it would have been a slaughter in that case, instead of the squeaker it was. Trump's biggest challenge was winning over the libertarian wing of the GOP. If he were against Sanders, that part of the party would have been locked down from day one.