Bottom line: not enough voters marked the Hillary box.

[MineralMan]

The real question we must answer is why that was. It's easy enough to get that some people either didn't vote at all or cast a useless vote for Stein or another third party candidate. I hope we don't see a lot of posts defending such votes here in this forum.

Even though Hillary won the national popular vote, that's really meaningless in a country that uses the Electoral College to try to balance out the influence of states with huge populations. The chances that Electors will switch are near zero.

Not enough votes for Hillary in enough states. That's why we're going to have Trump in the White House.

That's what we must fix before the next presidential election.

[R B Garr]

1. This same logic was used about Gore.

In the meantime, the Republicans will vote for absolute horror shows just to retain power. Logic and experience dictates that the only way to achieve lasting results is to retain power. The Republicans obviously understand that.

Had Gore taken office with the surplus that Clinton left, no telling how far along we might be in real environmental and other social policies. No candidate will be perfect and the more national experience they have, the more watered down they will be. Trump is already making concessions from his clown show in the Primary and the General. The Republicans vote for who is on the ticket.

[Sunlei]

2. places like detroit, people knew to not mark the trump box but 90k! didn't vote for any pres

I wish Hillary had picked Sanders as VP. The places/states Sanders had won easily were the places that either went trump, OR like Detroit had thousands, 90,000 voters who carefully voted everything on ballot EXCEPT for ANY President.

[R B Garr]

3. Wasn't that the direct result of the Bernie folks and the whole protest vote

strategy? If they couldn't have Bernie, then we can't have anyone at all. So self defeating. There really is no excuse for it.

[Sunlei]

8. No these were people who were demoralized. I supported Sanders because of his message & I voted Hill

He was a great benefit to the Clinton campaign and still is a great benefit to the D party today.

[R B Garr]

10. Actually that still sounds like the phony mantras forced upon us.

They were upset, not demoralized, that they couldn't force Sanders on the electorate. He tore Democrats and the party down, so his message wasn't even all that great. He ripped Clinton up but was unable or unwilling to prove any of his claims. It was all rhetoric, innuendo and smears, which is hardly a benefit to a candidate going into the general election.

Sorry, but he did a lot of damage.

[Sunlei]

15. fake news Dominates facebook/twitter, click bait headlines aren't the facts.

The two campaigns worked together very, very well. Hillary listened and adjusted/adapted a lot more towards what she & Sanders discussed. I read that on both their official websites & that's where I got my 'news' on the issue from.

It's my firm opinion if only the "stronger together party" picked Sanders as VP (or a top WH position)those empty ballots would have been filled in. Because together they were strongest in states that went republican AND in low population states that took advantage of electoral college advantage county by county. sometimes only couple hundred votes/blank ballots made the difference. I think even a Cheney slipped in a low population state this election.

I guarantee you won't hear Sanders or Hillary say any of those things you mentioned 'post election'. They both are very positive people. I hope our party strongly supports the rights of those protesters in the streets today, we're stronger together.

Now it's to late but we'll be ok. I'm really going to miss an Admin. that actually does live press questions daily and even several times a day. I'll listen to Obamas, Clinton and Sanders for their current insight on what can be done.

[R B Garr]

16. Reality is that those on the extreme left have turned against Bernie because

he did come out in support of Hillary. That's how irrational their thinking is. They turned on him, too.

[Sunlei]

19. They faded away once republicans won. They never were really Ds or real Sanders supporters.

I don't believe in a division of D party 'extreme left'. We are stronger together.

[R B Garr]

25. Well, they self-identified as that because Bernie was a socialist, so

the division within the party was already imposed by them to support Bernie. You couldn't be a Democrat here without being labeled a corporatist or some other such nonsense by the extreme left. It is still being perpetrated here.

I see the sentiment behind what you are saying, though.

The bottom line is that the Republicans seem to collectively understand that the main goal is to stay in power to keep the hard-fought changes in tact. You don't give power away for a beauty contest between Democrats and let the opposition take over and wipe away everything that has been fought for. You can see with the popular vote in 2000 and this year how the Repubs are being left behind by progressives (Democrats!), and how letting them back in with protest votes in battleground states is just political suicide. What a waste. We could have had Al Gore's environmental policies! Instead we got Bush's war.

[Sunlei]

28. Good points! I think we will all try harder to stay together.

I still have al gores cd he mailed out to everyone decades ago, he tried so hard to change minds. He was right.

[R B Garr]

30. I do miss Al Gore! It's hard to believe that the next election will be 20 years

since his 2000 campaign. What could have been...

I do appreciate your sentiments and see what you are saying about working together! Totally agree.

[duffyduff]

5. Sanders was a liability. Period.

You wouldn't need Putin or Wikileaks around to manufacture crapola about Sanders when you had his addled "New Left" writings, and when there was film footage of him praising Fidel Castro to the rafters.

[duffyduff]

4. Because of the media. Period.

Why are we living in denial around here as to what happened?

Is it fear because of how easily led astray 59 million people were thanks to 24/7 media fawning over Trump?

[MineralMan]

6. Yes, the media played a big role.

They treated the election as entertainment and went for ratings. Shame!

[TrekLuver]

7. People hated Hillary Clinton. I've spoken with a lot of different people about this from all

walks of life. They didn't like either candidate period. After years of hits even regular mainstream people just started to hate her and they were "sick" of the Clintons. That either motivated some of them to vote Trump or not vote at all.

Even with all that she almost won anyway.

[MineralMan]

12. Were you one of the ones who hated Clinton?

I'm confused.

[TrekLuver]

13. No I wasn't but what exactly are you confused about?

[Sunlei]

17. Hate is to strong a word. just not like enough to ever post anything "positive/kind" about her

the crazy republican trumpshow spectacle was more likable/fun and it was free to play

[elehhhhna]

29. Can confirm. Same here.

[jmg257]

32. Bingo. I think although a known issue, it was underated, espeically with the last-minute FBI BS

"confirming" too many people's reasons to not vote for her.

[astral]

9. I agree that the media went for the ratings, BUT!

It was unanimously Anti-Trump. I think there was a bit of a rebound effect among voters who were lukewarm about voting for either choice, being so BLATANTLY led by the nose they chose to go for the Underdog Candidate, having in their minds nothing to win or lose by doing so.

At this point in history, the news and information sources people access are NOT by and large from their TVs, if they still have one (I never did.)

The things that influence people's opinions are changing and as we see things are not predictable anymore.

What happens during this new administration is going to be different, but who's to say it's all going to be bad?

[MineralMan]

11. Not really. The media let Trump go on and on

and rarely countered anything he said.

But, your last sentence really troubles me. He's going to appoint conservatives to the SCOTUS. He's going to offend our allies and embolden our enemies. He's going to try to undo things like Roe V. Wade, same-sex marriage, and many other things. He's going to get the racists and bigots fired up against anyone who is not a white male.

Who's to day it's all going to be bad? I'm who. Everyone who is capable of rational thought is who.

Who did you vote for?

[TrekLuver]

14. I agree...the vast majority of media Trump coverage was not favorable. n/t

[MineralMan]

18. That's actually incorrect. The media showed

his rallies, etc., nonstop and uninterrupted. He didn't need to buy ad time, because they gave him so much coverage for free.

On the other hand, they showed only excerpts from Clinton's public appearances.

The media loved Trump because he got viewers for them.

[TrekLuver]

23. I thought them showing his disgusting hate filled rallies would of had the opposite effect and

I really believed that it would (and should of) turned people off. But besides that they were not "all in" for Trashpot like so many like to claim. This media bashing reminds me of another group who complains about the MSM. There was mostly unfavorable coverage regarding Trump...and if you disagree with this than which media outlets are the biggest offenders in your eyes?

[Coyotl]

20. That would be true if all votes counted and counted as cast. We don't know that is true.

We do not have verifiable elections!

Most accurate final, national pre-election estimates in 2012, here sort ordered by accuracy, with their predicted Clinton margins:

Ipsos/Reuters +5
YouGov +4.5
PPP +5 in battleground states
Angus-Reid +4
ABC/WP +5
NBC/WSJ +4
CBS/NYT +3
YouGov/Economist +5
UPI/CVOTER +3

Compare these to the exit polls!

[MineralMan]

21. I have no actual information on that.

Nobody does, really. The states will release their final canvasses and that will be that. Are there shenanigans in voting? No doubt. Can we prove that? Nope.

The results went differently than the polls. That's for sure. However, that doesn't mean that the polls were correct, and it appears that they, like me, were very wrong.

When we see the final breakdowns, we'll probably have a clearer picture. I think voters who normally don't bother to vote voted. I think far too many voters left the presidential race blank on their ballots. I think that not enough people voted for Clinton, and she lost.

Were the vote counts manipulated? Probably not in most states. Not in Minnesota, I'm sure.

[Coyotl]

22. Now you do:

http://tdmsresearch.com/2016/11/10/2016-presidential-election-table/

[jmg257]

34. Does anyone know WHERE these exit polls take place? I.E. how many are out in all the rural counties

that always go red?

[Coyotl]

35. Of course we know where they poll. Polling is a science, and the sampling is carefully designed

to represent the electorate using past election results to obtain the best representation of the electorate.

You should take a statistics class. You'll learn a lot about this.

[jmg257]

36. Cool - so they do cover all the different counties to get a good representation.

man that seems like a LOT of frigging work and people!

[LenaBaby61]

31. Hope we're able to vote in 2018 and 2020's elections.

"Are there shenanigans in voting? No doubt. Can we prove that? Nope."

Something that IMHO is being overlooked is voting rights in the upcoming Senate races in 2018 and the GE in 2020 and beyond.

Of course we can't prove it, but there was more than enough shenanigans to cause me to think that something was really foul where it concerned Democratic voters. But we haven't seen anything yet as I know you're aware, because voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression will even be on steroids and running rampant under a tRump DOJ, and specifically in Red states, I'm sure Democratic participation in voting will be a very tenuous and treacherous. Look at what "appears" to have happened in Wisconsin in terms of overly strict voter ID laws. Yes, a great number of voting restrictions had been overturned in Wisconsin by the court, but enough were in place to cause enough havoc there in terms of people not being able to vote, and sometimes all you need is just ENOUGH people not being able to vote and you lose elections like that, and Rethugs will make sure under a tRump DOJ to do just that where it concerns Democrats.

Dems better start working on voting rights as best they can IMMEDIATELY with that tRump DOJ coming in to of course wreak havoc were it concerns Democratic voter participation and Dem voting rights.

[Initech]

24. The deporables showed up in full force.

And more of them voted against Clinton than for Trump. That was the deal breaker.

[cynatnite]

26. Over 100 million eligible voters sat out the election...

And those that wanted to vote, but couldn't were either purged or outright blocked from doing so.

[stopbush]

27. The rationale for the existence of the EC is that it is a safety valve

that has the power to go against the will of the electorate's vote to stop an unqualified person from ascending to the office of president. It the EC won't do that job in this instance, there is no reason for its continued existence.

[guillaumeb]

33. I posted about this yesterday.

The bottom line for me is that 41% of voters did not vote. Unless and until the Democrats can inspire the apathetic, can inspire the working people, to vote Democratic it is the Democrats who will be rendered irrelevant.

Talk about hope and change and coming together is all good, but 35 years of stagnant wages cannot be smoothed over by rhetoric. It will take tax policies and trade policies that have as their foundation preserving jobs here and making it financially unrewarding to close factories here and ship the jobs overseas.