Why did Hillary Clinton lose the 2016 election? As Joe Biden continues to lead Donald Trump in the polls less than a month out from polling date and an eerie sense of déjà vu starts to set in, it’s worth revisiting how it was the Democrats seemingly blew what should have been a straightforward win.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders tend to say that after the living standards of the working class continued to atrophy under decades of neoliberal centrist Democrats, the blue collar workers were desperate for a circuit breaker. While Donald Trump provided this circuit breaker, Hillary Clinton promised stability at a time when instability was in vogue. The consequence was a once reliable blue collar base shifted Republican in a swathe of key states, tipping the electoral college balance in favour of a candidate who won two million fewer votes overall.
Built into this narrative somewhere was that the Democrats were so out of touch with their disillusioned base that they missed the signs that states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were tipping red. The theory goes that a real man of the people would have had a superior read on the electorate and reshuffled the resources around.
The first half of the narrative holds some water and probably goes a considerable way into explaining why many former Democrats who supported Trump did so, the latter however is a bunch of malarkey. Somewhere in the mythos of the 2016 election the received wisdom has become that Clinton never campaigned in any of three stats mentioned above. In fact Wisconsin was the only state Clinton never set foot in. Clinton visited Pennsylvania seven times and had surrogates Barrack Obama and Joe Biden make multiple campaign stops there.
The first half of the narrative does not however factor the votes that Clinton won that a Sanders or a Warren may not have won. Clinton performed unusually well in traditionally safe Republican states like Arizona and Texas. In neither case was the margin enough to tip the state but it demonstrated that many traditional conservatives and wealthier voters who typically voted Republican were unable to get behind that man that grabs women by the pussy. It was a concerted strategy that was working. From August till October 20 Clinton consistently polled between a five and seven percent lead over Trump. Then on October November 1st this lead plunged to one percent a drop of between 3-5 percent, after FBI director James Comey reopened the investigation into Clinton’s email sever.
Had the investigation reopened earlier, the Clinton campaign would have had more opportunities to regroup and reassign resources. Instead, less than two weeks before polling day, an event happened that caused her levels of support to drop by between three and five percent. The causal link was undeniable and can reasonably be applied to the electoral map. Even if we are to be ultra conservative and say that Comey intervention only moved the electoral pendulum by 1.5%, applied uniformly this still tips Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, giving Clinton a solid electoral college win of 302 votes to 229 (and a popular vote landslide of 5 million votes). A more generous 4% swing, applied uniformly sees Clinton pick up Arizona and North Carolina for a strong 328-203 win.
But despite evidence to the contrary, this isn’t a piece about wondering what might have been, it is a piece that asks if 2016 has any insight into how 2020 may play out. Clinton and Biden appeal to similar voting demographics. They are both establishment Democrat types, Clinton is a little more popular with the business community and liberal progressives, Biden is a bit more popular with the unions the white working class, but there is a lot of overlap. For the most part the same states are likely to be the tipping point for the election.
If we run with my hypothesis that Comey’s intervention effectively swung the last election then we can reasonably say that all other things being equal, Biden is on track for a comfortable victory. Biden’s polling tends to be a little stronger than Clinton’s at this stage of the last election cycle, and does not appear to have a sword of Damacles swaying menacingly above his head as Clinton did. On the other hand, until October 28, 2016 most of thought Clinton had weathered the emails storm and it was now behind her. And it is fair to say that a Trump Whitehouse seems more likely to engineer an intervention from bureaucrats in Biden’s disfavour than any other administration in recent history.
The other big variable is of coursethe Corona virus. While Covid 19 has generally reset peoples attitudes towards evidence based policy and driven a tide of opinion away from populist demagogues like Trump, the logistics of a fair election in Corona times seems daunting. The US has an unenviable record when it comes to electoral administration and we must assume a pandemic will only exacerbate things. In Republican controlled states in particular it is human to be a little apprehensive about whether a safe and fair election day can take place. Expect allegations of postal ballots not being counted and voting stations being closed for public health and safety on election day, regardless of the who wins.
So what’s the answer to the only question anyone cares about? Well, Biden. Probably. I think. Maybe. It depends.
I’ll say this: If the US election is administered properly and if there is not a single event on the scale of the Comey intervention of 2016 between now and election day, I expect Joe Biden to win. But those are some very big “ifs”.
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