I wanted to share some thoughts I had about this election. This is a scattered bunch of ideas but I figured they would be more coherent written down than if I spoke them. I don’t want to spend time repeating or rehashing what has already been said about Donald Trump, his message or his campaign but I wanted to share with you some of the thoughts I’ve had through this election cycle and over the past couple of days. We talked about some of these issues in class so I apologize for any repetition.

Why were polls, predictions, and statistical models wrong?

Most models rely on a very crucial assumption: that we can make predictions about the future based on understanding what happened in the past. Generally speaking this works as long as the future continues to operate relatively similarly to the past. Each election cycle, polls and models are updated to anticipate changes but every so often, major things change and old models prove to be wrong and have to be reevaluated and changed or thrown out.

When it comes to elections, how can you predict what a diverse group of over 100,000,000 people will do on a particular day? You have to create models that collect ton of data over a long period and find ways to interpret that information. You have to figure out things like: What do people think? Who will show up to vote? Who will stay home? What matters to these people?

You answer these questions by looking at how people behaved in the past and make predictions about what they may do in the future. It just so happens that people’s behavior changed drastically in this election and as a result, the assumptions these polls relied on proved to be false. When polls fail, most of them fail all at the same time because they were all built to explain what happened in the past and are unprepared to deal with a new reality.

Consider for example if forecasters, based on past elections, even slightly underestimated the turnout of rural voters, who overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump. Or what if they slightly overestimated the turnout of Clinton voters? If either or both of those things happened, their forecasts would have been wrong to determine the winners of a few states. This seems to be what happened this year.

When we look at how shifting the popular vote by even 1% away from Trump toward Clinton in a few states would have resulted in electoral “landslide” for Clinton we see that most models would have accurate. When those are the margins you’re dealing with, it becomes clearer why the predictions can turn out so badly and why people should reduce the confidence they have in their models.

Nate Silver, the guy who runs fivethirtyeight.com (the site I often show you in class), was criticized for putting Hillary Clinton’s chances in the mid 60% when other models had her in the high 90% (read a particularly stupid article, critical of Nate Silver here). Silver defended his conservative estimate by discussing the high unpredictability still built into the polling data and that Clinton’s margin of victory in a lot of states was within the margin of error. In addition, he correctly pointed out that each state’s votes are not unconnected to other states. For example, if people don’t show up to vote for her in Michigan, it’s probably also going to be true in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania because these states share similar demographics and economics. Suddenly a 3% predicted margin of victory in each state is now a 1% deficit. In the end, though, he predicted a Clinton victory as well and was wrong.

In 2012, only Florida (29 electoral votes) was decided by less that 2% of the popular vote in that state which means that polling “errors” were likely not consequential and people like Nate Silver were able to accurately predict the outcome of all 50 states. In this election, though, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Florida (89 electoral votes total) were all decided by less than 2% so polling errors were magnified in the electoral college because of the “winner take all system.”

Interesting to note though that even though individual state polling was off, the national polling numbers, once all the votes are counted, will be very close to what actually happened, with Hillary Clinton winning by 1-2% of the popular vote.

Elections are like pressure valves

I believe our system has survived as long as it has because it is excellent at diverting people’s energy and attention into political campaigns and voting. Elections provide a catharsis, or cleansing, of people’s energy and anger. In authoritarian governments, that energy has no constructive outlet and when it gets strong enough, it results in overthrowing the government or some form of violence which can destabilize a country.

This election provided an avenue for people who were unhappy with what they deem as the “establishment”and a political and economic system that does not serve their interests. I’m not endorsing those attitudes or what caused them but it is important to consider the fact that people were angry, took to action, elected someone they wanted and now that energy is satisfied constructively. What if Donald Trump proves to be an ineffective President or loses reelection? Those same people won’t be angry again in the same way because this election provided a release for that pressure. In democracies, elections serve as pressure valves for people’s anger and frustrations and I believe this election has served that purpose.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a famous French writer who visited the United States in the early 1800’s, wrote a famous book called Democracy in America in which he made some brilliant observations about the United States. One comment he made, quoted below, talks about the idea I just mentioned above in far more eloquent words. I think it’s important to keep them in mind when considering elections.

“A presidential election in the United States may be looked upon as a time of national crisis. As the election draws near, intrigues intensify, and agitation increases and spreads. The citizens divide into several camps, each behind its candidate. A fever grips the entire nation. The election becomes the daily grist of the public papers, the subject of private conversations, the aim of all activity, the object of all thought, the sole interest of the moment.

“Immediately after fortune renders its verdict, of course, this ardor dissipates, calm is restored, and the river, having briefly overflowed its banks, returns peacefully to its bed.”

This was published in 1835.

It’s good to be an “outsider”

Barack Obama was relatively inexperienced (at the time) for a guy who became the President of the United States. In 2008, people were willing to elect a man who had only served four years in the US Senate and seven years in the Illinois state government. At the time, people criticized him as being inexperienced for having such a “limited” resume. He had never served in an executive position like Governor where many Presidents usually come from. People were unhappy with the direction of the country in 2008 and chose an “outsider” because he promised hope and change without a resume filled with disappointment in public office.

This time around, whether it is fair or not, people continue to have very little faith in the institution of government, so much so that they were now willing to elect a person who has never held any elected office whatsoever. At the same time, he was running against a candidate in Clinton who was seen as the ultimate insider who had been involved with government for decades and strong connections to those in power in media and business. Experience in government has now come to be seen as a liability rather than an asset and saying you’re an “outsider” helps your chances of winning elections. We saw this all around the country from state legislative races to national congressional ones. Around the country, we saw candidates selling themselves as “outsiders” whereas before one might have described them as inexperienced.

Money doesn’t always win

Regardless of what motivated people to vote for Donald Trump, this election says a lot about the nature of power in a democracy. Hillary Clinton raised and spent far more money than Donald Trump, had a much larger a better organized team all around the country, a more unified party behind her, “Wall Street” and various monied interests supporting her, had almost the newspaper endorsements (even from conservative newspapers), most tv media on her side, a sitting President, the first lady, Bernie Sanders, among others, actively campaigning for her, almost all the polls pointing to her victory, many, many important Republican party members endorsing her. And Donald Trump still won. There is an important lesson here about how at the end of the day the only thing that wins elections are votes. Money plays an important part but it can’t buy you an election. Ask JeB Bush who raised almost $150 million for the Republican primary and didn’t come close to sniffing a win in any states, much less the nomination.

Clearly there were many extenuating circumstances in this election including FBI investigations and email leaks but the point remains that if you have a message that resounds with people then you can overcome many of the conventional sources of political power.

Would Bernie Sanders have won if he ran against Donald Trump?

I think that it’s possible. Hillary Clinton’s message fell flat in what is called the “Rust Belt.” This is the region of the country surrounding the Great lakes that used to have a lot of employment in manufacturing (steel, cars, etc.) and as a result she lost states that Democrats have come to rely on winning like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. I think that Bernie Sanders’ economic message on trade and jobs would have had a similar appeal to those voters as Donald Trump’s had and he probably would have fared better in these states but it is impossible to know.

We also have to remember that Bernie Sanders’ views, considered outside of the American mainstream, may have caused a candidate like Michael Bloomberg, a moderate, to run for President as a 3rd party which would have changed the race in unpredictable ways. I also wonder what would have happened if Bernie Sanders had been scrutinized the way Hillary Clinton was, whether public opinion would have turned against him as well. We also should consider the fact that though he had “outsider” appeal, he has been in the US Congress for decades.

What is going on in the United States?

In 2000, Republicans had control of the Presidency and both houses of Congress (50 seats in the Senate and 221 in the House)

In 2008, in what seemed like a tidal wave for Democrats, Barack Obama won the popular vote by more than 7% and won 365 electoral votes. The Democrats also had a huge majority in the House of Representatives 257-178 and a 60-40 majority in the Senate.

In 2016, Republicans once again won the Presidency and both houses of Congress (52 Senators and 239 in the House).

Why do we keep shifting between parties like this?

Some people compare American politics to a pendulum that swings back and forth. These past 16 years, we have seen the dominant party shift pretty dramatically between the Republicans and Democrats. The more abruptly it swings one way, it seems to swing back just as quickly.

People expect government to solve all sorts of problems, and politicians are quick to make promises when they campaign. If your party is out of power then you can claim that your party can fix whatever is wrong and obviously caused by the other party; you’re the “outsiders.” After 8 years of being on the inside, now the other party can campaign against you just the same and it’s your turn to leave. All the while, how much can government actually fix the various problems that ail a country or state?

When we look at the big picture, we see a nation and a world rapidly changing and causing tremendous upheaval and uncertainty about the future. Industries that once employed many people don’t require the same workforce, displacing many people. Soon we’ll have driverless cars and trucks displacing millions of people in the workforce

Jobs have left places like Ohio not because a Presidential candidate made them go away and can make them come back. Machines can do some work far more efficiently and cheaply than humans can. Some foreign countries can product goods far cheaper than we can. These jobs that left, will not come back to the US and if they did, the work would not necessarily be done by humans. At the same time though, every four years, Presidential candidates tour through Ohio and make the same promises and all the while, American manufacturing employment declines. It has been declining since 1947 by the way, when after WWII, the rest of the industrialized world was destroyed and the US was one of the only industrialized country left on its feet. This situation could not have remained the same because the rest of the world was going to and has bounced back.

To some degree, these changes are inevitable but they create a feeling of powerlessness which I think fuels these dramatic electoral shifts and I don’t see this changing in the near future. I don’t believe the next candidate the Democrats put forward will be as moderate and “experienced” as Hillary Clinton because that seems not to be what people want.

Voter turnout

For a lot of reasons, the voter turnout rates in this election were far lower than they were in 2012 and in 2008. 129,000,000 people voted for Obama and McCain in 2008 when Obama was the overwhelming favorite. In 2016, with a much closer election, around 120,000,000 voted (this number will go up as late votes are counted). Donald Trump won in 2016 with fewer votes than John McCain lost with in 2008. The population of the US is also larger than it was in 2008 so there are even more potential voters in the US.

Why did fewer people vote?

• This was an extremely negative campaign and many people stated their preferences by staying home on election day because they were turned off by both candidates.
• Barack Obama was an extremely effective campaigner who drove people to the polls in ways that Clinton and Trump did not.
• Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails, the contentious primary with Bernie Sanders, the FBI investigation also hurt the enthusiasm of potential Democratic voters.
• In some key states like Wisconsin, there new voter ID laws that may have prevented people from voting if they didn’t have proper identification.

 

If we had a popular vote system, would Hillary Clinton have won?

I’ll leave it to you to make up your minds about this and make your own arguments in your essays about whether the electoral college system is good or bad. It is ironic that we are writing essays about the electoral college the same week that a candidate will win while losing the popular vote.

This election operated under a certain set of rules and each candidate campaigned and created messages according to those rules. Donald Trump did his job and won states that he needed to win. To say that Hillary Clinton should be President because she won the popular vote is like saying that a soccer team should win because though they scored fewer goals, they should be considered the winners because they took more shots on goal (alright maybe not the best analogy). Victory is defined by winning at least 270 votes in the electoral college. That’s the game and Trump played it and he won. Under a completely different system, many other variables would have changed, creating completely unpredictable outcomes.

Safe states don’t always stay safe

This election is a reminder of what we spoke about in this past unit. States that Democrats had come to rely on like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, did not receive much attention from Hillary Clinton. She did not spend much money advertising or traveling to these states. Donald Trump did and ended up winning two of those states and made Minnesota unexpectedly close. If people living in these safe states don’t believe that the party expecting to win serves their needs then they can switch and in this election they did.

 

 

Interesting that Donald Trump ran a campaign against just about everyone and everything.

Though he is (allegedly?) a billionaire, he did an excellent job characterizing himself as the little guy, the victim, the underdog, etc. and made people feel like he related to the people who voted for him.

He ran a campaign against Hillary Clinton but also against Mexico, Mexicans, Muslims, refugees, immigrants of various kinds, China, Chinese stuff, Republicans who didn’t support him, newspapers and “the media” and a lot of other groups of people who were unpopular with his supporters. This turned out to be an effective strategy that limited the power of some groups when they spoke out against him but also capitalized on fears about other groups.

By talking about the polls and the election and the media being “rigged” he did an excellent job motivating people to vote who feel like the “system” is similarly rigged against them.

None of this is to endorse his approach or his message but to acknowledge the effectiveness of what he did.

Should we blame Jill Stein for this?

In 2000, people blamed 3^rd party candidate Ralph Nader for George W. Bush beating Al Gore by a slim margin. People believed that Ralph Nader’s support (almost 3% nationally) took votes away from Al Gore and cost him the election. In this election, Jill Stein’s vote totals, although small, could have made a difference to help Clinton win some key states if Clinton had gotten Stein’s votes. I personally don’t believe that any candidate should feel entitled to the votes of another candidate. If you earn those votes then you deserve them. If people chose to vote for someone else then you should not feel like they were supposed to be yours.

We could change the hypothetical and ask what would have happened had Gary Johnson not run. In that case, I believe Trump’s margin of victory would have been even larger so I don’t think you can pick and choose situations that favor the outcome you desired and it is fruitless to talk about which candidates would have or should have run and what the effect would have been.

Crazy elections all around

People compared this election to Great Britain’s vote on whether to leave the European Union. That, I think, is an apt comparison because both outcomes were unexpected and motivated by similar issues: A shifting economy and demographics (immigration). In the UK, there was a similar alignment of interests as you had in the US supporting Clinton in favor of staying in the EU including prominent politicians, newspapers, among others and in a close vote, British voters chose to leave the European Union for the uncertain promise of something better. Donald Trump has made a similar promise: vote against the “establishment” and all the people who think they know what’s best for you and I’ll make things better for you.

New York City is a bubble.

It’s important to remember that you live and go to school in Manhattan where over 80% of the residents cast ballots for Hillary Clinton. This is not representative of the country. Be aware of the fact that what seems like obvious and intuitive truth to you is not necessarily shared by most people. It’s important not to be dismissive of others’ opinions and not to overestimate the universality of your experiences, thought processes, and conclusions.

New York City is also a place that has done well economically in this changing global economy. As a result many people (including you all) have access to good public schools, the expectation of going to college, and the expectation of gainful employment. The population of the city is growing, there is construction everywhere and rising home prices. Much of the country does not share in this bounty. To some degree I believe this explains the appeal of a Donald Trump who, although on paper he is impossible to relate to)

We live in a red country.

In 2017, we will have a Republican President, a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. 2/3 of the states will have Republican governors, and the vast majority of state legislatures have republican majorities.

Though people have focused on the fact that we have a Democrat as President the last 8 years, the Democratic party has been suffering huge losses during that time at every level of government.

The current crop of prominent national Democrats is aging and has been around for a while. This election has shown us that people don’t want candidates who have been hanging out in Washington or any government for too long. I don’t expect the next Democratic candidate to be Joe Biden, John Kerry, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton or any other household name. I can’t even put together a list of who it could be.

The Democrats will have to fix a lot of the damage that has been done to the party in this last election cycle. Much of that damage can be traced to the emails leaked from Hillary Clinton and the DNC which exposed, among other things, that the party colluded with Clinton to undermine Bernie Sanders’ candidacy, that the Clinton campaign had a very cozy and, I would argue, unethical relationship with people in the news media.

Often, losing an election like this forces parties to reevaluate and regroup and make important decisions about who they are and what they stand for. The Democratic party was wounded and divided before yesterday and would have remained so even if Hillary Clinton had won. Losing yesterday just moves up the timeline for when they have to make some reassessments. The Republican party is in similar turmoil even though they won the election.

Or is it purple?

I think it is important not to think of the nation and states as red or blue. Remember that there is an entire spectrum of political ideas and philosophies and that electoral college system strongly pushes people to one party or the other. In every state and community there are people casting votes for both parties and also various third parties. And though much of the US map is colored red, many states Donald Trump (and Hillary Clinton for that matter) won was with less than 50% of the popular vote. The country is in fact divided but it is not a stark as the Red/Blue map you’ll keep seeing.

 

What will happen under a President Trump?

I think it is important to remember that candidates do what they have to do to win elections and often this has little bearing on the kinds of policies they will pursue as President. Interestingly, because Donald Trump feuded with the Republican party throughout this race, he may not feel beholden to them for ideas or policies. I do think he will be far more independent than most Republicans in his position which is part of the reason, I think, people elected him. I don’t believe we will have any big changes with our border (there is already a wall on the border by the way) and there will probably not be a tremendous increase in immigration enforcement (President Obama’s administration has been very aggressive in deporting people by the way).

I do think that the Supreme Court is a big deal though. The Senate gambled by not confirming President Obama’s moderate nominee, Merrick Garland, and it paid off when Donald Trump won the election. Antonin Scalia, a very conservative Justice will most likely be replaced by another conservative justice. I don’t believe that this will change much about how the court has functioned. I don’t believe they will change much about issues like abortion etc. That being said, three liberal/moderate Justices are around the age of 80. Should one of them retire or die in office, a replacement justice could tip the balance of the court for a long time to come. That will be an interesting

Power of the President

We’ll spend time talking about this during the semester but what power does the President actually have? The President is not as powerful as people think but also powerful in ways that people don’t realize. The President cannot make laws by himself but can decide how to enforce the laws that exist. The President nominates and appoints people to many, many jobs and the people he chooses have tremendous influence over how the government functions because the federal government has many, many regulations on everything from airline safety to accounting standards for corporations. The people who have been loyal to his campaign will undoubtedly benefit from their loyalty and find themselves in key cabinet positions. People like Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie. The people in charge of those agencies (nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate) decide how aggressively laws and regulations will be enforced and which areas are focused on. The President is also the commander in chief of the armed forces and can make many decisions over how to pursue military strategy and foreign policy.

Louisiana’s weird Senate elections

Remember that each state determines its own processes and procedures for elections. Louisiana has a particularly weird process. Louisiana has what is called a “jungle” primary system in which multiple people from the same party can run in the first round on election day. In this case, around 20 different candidates received votes and the top vote getter only got 25% of the popular vote. If no one wins the majority of the popular vote, there is a run off election at a later date between the top two vote getters and at the second election one of them will get the majority and then win the election.

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/louisiana-senate

What else happened on election day? Anything good?

Kamala Harris (California) became the first Indian American and only the second African American woman in history to be elected to the US Senate (she is of mixed race).

Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada) became the first Latina to be elected to the US Senate

I would say both of these are positive developments because the US Senate is notoriously challenging for minorities and women to be elected so I think it is important for this group to be more inclusive and representative of the United States as a whole, particularly because the Senate has so many special powers and responsibilities. Two more women were elected as well: Tammy Duckworth (Illinois) and Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire, may be a recount though).

There were also many  interesting ballot initiatives (we’ll talk about this later this semester about the different ways that laws can be made) in some states. These are proposed laws that citizens vote on rather than being passed by the state lawmakers. Here are a few of the interesting ones.

• Recreational marijuana was made legal in four more states.
• Doctor assisted suicide was made legal in Colorado
• Three states increased their minimum wages.

Lastly, you’ll be old enough to vote when Donald Trump runs for reelection. Don’t forget that.