The SMALL vs BIG Comey Effect

[PsychoBabble]

Nate Silver has continued to post from time to time on the Comey Effect - here is his latest data anlysis (see graph, tweet #4), based around the Big/Little Comey letter effect on the election outcome.

Key tweet points:

"You can argue for a 3-4 point effect (I call this "Big Comey&quot or more like a 1-2 point effect ("Small Comey&quot . I'm on the Small Comey side ... But either case is reasonable ... Of course, even a 1-2 point effect would be enough to cost Clinton the Electoral College."

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Article Summary snips:

Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28 ...

The letter isn’t the only reason that Clinton lost. It does not excuse every decision the Clinton campaign made. Other factors may have played a larger role in her defeat, and it’s up to Democrats to examine those as they choose their strategy for 2018 and 2020.

But the effect of those factors — say, Clinton’s decision to give paid speeches to investment banks, or her messaging on pocket-book issues, or the role that her gender played in the campaign — is hard to measure. The impact of Comey’s letter is comparatively easy to quantify, by contrast ...

And yet, from almost the moment that Trump won the White House, many mainstream journalists have been in denial about the impact of Comey’s letter. The article that led The New York Times’s website the morning after the election did not mention Comey or “FBI” even once — a bizarre development considering the dramatic headlines that the Times had given to the letter while the campaign was underway. Books on the campaign have treated Comey’s letter as an incidental factor, meanwhile ...

One can believe that the Comey letter cost Clinton the election without thinking that the media cost her the election — it was an urgent story that any newsroom had to cover. But if the Comey letter had a decisive effect and the story was mishandled by the press — given a disproportionate amount of attention relative to its substantive importance, often with coverage that jumped to conclusions before the facts of the case were clear — the media needs to grapple with how it approached the story. More sober coverage of the story might have yielded a milder voter reaction ...

Data aside, the key point Silver has continued to make is that the media bloodlust on the front end has not been fully addressed - the MSM DID drive this HRC story, and hasn't accounted for it's own role in the outcome.

"Breath-Holding 101," anyone?

The full article:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538

[pnwmom]

1. And, as he says -- EITHER one would be enough to flip the election,

which hung on only about 70,000 votes in 3 states.

[yallerdawg]

2. Jill Stein voters in the Rust Belt would have given Hillary the victory.

How many were swayed by the Comey letter to no longer "hold their nose" and vote for the Democratic candidate?

I was a diehard Hillary supporter, and the letter stunned me!