2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I really don't understand how Trump is even competitive in this race [View all]Awsi Dooger
(14,565 posts)I always prefer situational overview. Under that perspective, 2016 always figured to be tight.
Obama's approval boosted recently, which helps, but long term it's been shaky. That's limited our upside, along with the moderate economic numbers.
Frankly I'm thrilled where we are, given these situational variables that were easily identifiable entering 2016:
* Poor right track/wrong numbers, with underlying frustration and desire for change
* White working class males shifting in small but meaningful percentage toward Republicans. That theme has been all over the place for 2 years or more. Online articles galore. Many of the top political analysts spotlighted it as the single pivotal factor applied to 2016
* Hillary's low upside given her gender, Benghazi, emails and 25 years of high profile scrutiny. We had no chance of a positive surge that captures voters who otherwise pay little attention
Entering 2016 I expected Hillary Clinton to lose a very tight election. It made the most sense, given those factors I described above. Immense kudos to the GOP for nominating the one candidate who had potential to all but remove Hillary Clinton from the discussion for the vast majority of the fall. Too bad it didn't last two more weeks. I couldn't believe we actually had potential for a decent margin in terrain like this.