How did Trump win?
That is the question that seems to be on the mind of almost every pundit, politician and pollster right now. They almost all got it wrong.
Readers of BeeLine know that I regularly predicted that Trump had a good chance of winning the Presidency.
I wrote in May that I believed that Trump had a 50/50 chance of defeating Hillary. This was when almost everyone (including most elected Republicans) were saying he would have no chance. In fact, they were saying he would destroy the party and all its down ticket races.
I also warned that I thought that this race was particularly dangerous for pollsters to predict for any number of reasons.
How many voters will decide to just sit it out rather than make a choice?
Will the election be decided more by votes for or votes against a candidate?
Will the 18-29 age group turnout to vote and who will they support?
The voters seem willing to revolt. The primaries point to it. However, voters are only willing to risk so much. If he wants to win, Donald Trump needs to be seen as reasonable and rational while also being seen as revolutionary. It will not be an easy task.
If he can do it, he will win.
In August, Trump's poll numbers were sinking as he veered off message and seemed to have a tempest swirling around him everyday. Every pundit and many politicians in his own party were distancing themselves from him but I doubled down on Donald Trump's chances.
The current environment is providing Donald Trump something akin to a customer walking up to one of the poker tables in his casinos and drawing an inside straight.
The world is a mess. A vast majority of people in our country say we are heading in the wrong direction. People are tired of the status quo and the Democrats are running the Queen of the Status Quo.
It doesn't get much better than that for Donald Trump.
In fact, I dare say that the only one that can beat Donald Trump...is Donald Trump.
How did Trump win?
A big reason is obvious. He started listening to me! Actually, more likely, he took the advice of his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and his children and stayed on message and tamed the tempest around him in the last several weeks of the campaign. In doing so, he became a reasonable choice for the many voters who were looking for change.
Another big reason is that the voters who turned out at the polls favored Trump. I had made a big point of this as being critical for Trump if he was going to win. That is why I wrote this two weeks before election day.
I don't know who is going to win this election. I am not sure the pollsters do at this point either.
What I do know is that it will be determined by how many vote (turnout), who those voters are (young, old, black, white) and events that still may play out and play on the minds of voters (volatility) between now and election day.
Let's look at the exit poll data and examine some of the more interesting insights on the makeup of the voters who made Trump the President-elect of the United States.
62% of voters believed that things in the country are seriously off on the wrong track. By comparison, only 52% believed that in 2012. Trump beat Clinton 69%-25% with that group of people. A big reason he won was that he convinced voters he was a reasonable agent of change.
You also see that in the exit poll data as 39% of voters cited "can bring needed change" as the most important candidate quality they were looking for. Trump won that group 83%-14%!
You also see that in the exit poll data as 39% of voters cited "can bring needed change" as the most important candidate quality they were looking for. Trump won that group 83%-14%!
Trump showed he was a change agent from the beginning of the primaries. His challenge in the general election was to show voters that he was not a risky bet in the process. 60% of voters had made up their minds before September on who they would vote for and Hillary won those voters 52%-45%.
For Trump to win he had to convince the remaining 40% that he was a reasonable choice to effect change and that is exactly what he did in the end.
In fact, of those voters who made up their minds after Labor Day, Trump won every cohort.
For Trump to win he had to convince the remaining 40% that he was a reasonable choice to effect change and that is exactly what he did in the end.
In fact, of those voters who made up their minds after Labor Day, Trump won every cohort.
Notice that Trump was particularly strong in October (the month of the debates) and in the last week (after Comey reopened the FBI investigation) in closing the sale with voters but Trump still won those who made their decision in the last few days after Comey reversed himself again. In 2012, Obama also won all of the groups who decided in October or later. In addition, 26% did not finally decide on their candidate until October or later this year. Only 20% made up their minds that late in 2012.
It is also interesting that in an election where both candidates had high unfavorables, that Trump dominated with those voters that had an unfavorable opinion of both candidates.
18% of voters stated that they did not have a favorable opinion of either candidate. Trump carried those voters 49%-29%.
In the end, what really did in Hillary Clinton was her lack of honesty and trustworthiness. This was an issue that has dogged her for years and that is a big reason her private email was such a problem in this campaign. That comes through clearly in the exit polling.
Asked whether her use of private email bothered them while she was Secretary of State, almost 2/3 of voters said it bothered them a lot or some and she lost this group 70%-24%.
Looking at this data, it is clear that the Democrat establishment made a huge error in rallying around Hillary and "rigging" the primary process for her. It ultimately cost their party the White House and also did damage to Democrats in down ticket races.
Finally, let's look at the key turnout data. I stated consistently during the campaign that Hillary would need to get big turnouts of African-American and young voters to win. She would also need to garner numbers similar to what Obama did from these groups in 2012.
The overall mix of voters was 70% white, 12% black, 11% latino, 4% Asian and 3% other. This compares to 72% white, 13% black, 10% latino, 3% Asian and 2% other in 2012. The net result was that both white and black percentages were down while Hispanics and other ethic groups were bigger groups within the total electorate.
All in, the African-American vote was down by over 1 million voters from 2012. As I predicted, Clinton was not able to energize these voters as Barack Obama did. At the same time, Trump got 8% of the black vote---a third more than what Romney got.
The age demographic of the voters did not hurt Hillary as much. Young voters showed up. 19% of voters were ages 18-29 in both 2016 and 2012. However, they did not support Clinton like they supported Obama. Obama took 67% of this group in 2008 and 60% in 2012. Hillary only got 55% of their vote this year. That represented another 1 million votes of more that Hillary lost compared to Obama in 2012.
At the same time, voters 50 and older actually increased from 44% to 45% of the electorate and Trump won similar winning margins with this group as Romney did (6-7 points).
Another interesting comparison in the data is the fact that Trump beat Clinton by 21 points with white voters overall. Romney beat Obama by 20 points. Is it racist that white voters actually preferred Obama to Clinton?
Perhaps it was sexism at work instead? However, white women overall supported Trump 53%-43% despite his alleged issues with women.
The only demographic that Trump failed to carry among white voters were female college graduates He lost those women by 6 points. However, white women without college degrees supported Trump by an incredible 62%-34%. He did even better with white men with similar education attainment----72%-23%!
These working-class men and women, who historically were considered the backbone of the Democratic party, were a major reason that Donald Trump won. Many had abandoned the Democrats beginning in the 1980's. Trump took it to another level. Trump won high school graduates and those with some college by around 10 points. Obama won the same group in 2012 by 2 points. Bear in mind, those without a college degree represents half of the voters in the country.
One example is right here in my home state of Ohio. Montgomery County in which Dayton is the major city and a home to hundreds of thousands of working class voters. Trump beat Clinton 48%-47%. Obama beat Romney 51%-47% and McCain 52%-46%. Repeat that in hundreds of counties across the country and you get the final result for Trump with working class voters.
I also found this exit poll question interesting in that it undoubtedly shows that Donald Trump picked up a fair number of Bernie Sanders and other disaffected liberals who did not want to vote for Hillary Clinton. They are represented by the 17% of the electorate that believes that the next President should be more liberal than Barack Obama. However, 23% of these liberals voted for Donald Trump! Let's put that in context. That is around 5 million votes!
Why were the pollsters wrong? Clearly there was more than one factor but the biggest reason seems to be their assumption about the makeup of those voting. Most pollsters kept overweighting their samples assuming that self-identified Democrats would make up voters by margins of from +6 to +8. In these pages I consistently argued that this did seem realistic considering this election did not feel like the D+6 or D+7 makeups of the 2012 and 2008 races with Obama on the ticket.
The final result---D+4.
Which polls were the closest to getting it right? The LA Times and IBD polls that I kept referencing in my blog posts.
Not everyone got it wrong.
I will cite my favorite Mark Twain quote once again for good measure.
The overall mix of voters was 70% white, 12% black, 11% latino, 4% Asian and 3% other. This compares to 72% white, 13% black, 10% latino, 3% Asian and 2% other in 2012. The net result was that both white and black percentages were down while Hispanics and other ethic groups were bigger groups within the total electorate.
All in, the African-American vote was down by over 1 million voters from 2012. As I predicted, Clinton was not able to energize these voters as Barack Obama did. At the same time, Trump got 8% of the black vote---a third more than what Romney got.
The age demographic of the voters did not hurt Hillary as much. Young voters showed up. 19% of voters were ages 18-29 in both 2016 and 2012. However, they did not support Clinton like they supported Obama. Obama took 67% of this group in 2008 and 60% in 2012. Hillary only got 55% of their vote this year. That represented another 1 million votes of more that Hillary lost compared to Obama in 2012.
At the same time, voters 50 and older actually increased from 44% to 45% of the electorate and Trump won similar winning margins with this group as Romney did (6-7 points).
Another interesting comparison in the data is the fact that Trump beat Clinton by 21 points with white voters overall. Romney beat Obama by 20 points. Is it racist that white voters actually preferred Obama to Clinton?
Perhaps it was sexism at work instead? However, white women overall supported Trump 53%-43% despite his alleged issues with women.
The only demographic that Trump failed to carry among white voters were female college graduates He lost those women by 6 points. However, white women without college degrees supported Trump by an incredible 62%-34%. He did even better with white men with similar education attainment----72%-23%!
These working-class men and women, who historically were considered the backbone of the Democratic party, were a major reason that Donald Trump won. Many had abandoned the Democrats beginning in the 1980's. Trump took it to another level. Trump won high school graduates and those with some college by around 10 points. Obama won the same group in 2012 by 2 points. Bear in mind, those without a college degree represents half of the voters in the country.
One example is right here in my home state of Ohio. Montgomery County in which Dayton is the major city and a home to hundreds of thousands of working class voters. Trump beat Clinton 48%-47%. Obama beat Romney 51%-47% and McCain 52%-46%. Repeat that in hundreds of counties across the country and you get the final result for Trump with working class voters.
I also found this exit poll question interesting in that it undoubtedly shows that Donald Trump picked up a fair number of Bernie Sanders and other disaffected liberals who did not want to vote for Hillary Clinton. They are represented by the 17% of the electorate that believes that the next President should be more liberal than Barack Obama. However, 23% of these liberals voted for Donald Trump! Let's put that in context. That is around 5 million votes!
Why were the pollsters wrong? Clearly there was more than one factor but the biggest reason seems to be their assumption about the makeup of those voting. Most pollsters kept overweighting their samples assuming that self-identified Democrats would make up voters by margins of from +6 to +8. In these pages I consistently argued that this did seem realistic considering this election did not feel like the D+6 or D+7 makeups of the 2012 and 2008 races with Obama on the ticket.
The final result---D+4.
Which polls were the closest to getting it right? The LA Times and IBD polls that I kept referencing in my blog posts.
Not everyone got it wrong.
I will cite my favorite Mark Twain quote once again for good measure.
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.”
It is worthwhile advice for every pundit, politician and pollster to remember. And protestor.
Protestors in my era who were against the Vietnam War chanted "Give Peace A Chance."
Perhaps they should "Give Trump A Chance."
Could it be that what they think they know for sure just ain't so?
Protestors in my era who were against the Vietnam War chanted "Give Peace A Chance."
Perhaps they should "Give Trump A Chance."
Could it be that what they think they know for sure just ain't so?
Lots of stats and figures but I have heard that Hilary actually got more votes than Donald. Donald just won electoral regions. Is this true? If so then your stats don't ring true.
ReplyDeleteIf you regularly predicted it, it was very late in the game. Way after I saw the writing on the wall.
ReplyDeleteFrom an earlier post of yours:
Donald Trump
Trump has energized the race. He says things that many voters think but would never say. There is a lot of bluster and some blarney in him as well. He's like the "bad boy" that a lot of girls would like to date. However, will they marry him? His poll numbers look good in the dating phase we are in right now but are GOP voters going to commit to him long-term in the voting booth? That is a commitment I am not ready to make and my bet is that will be true for a majority of GOP voters in the end.
Could probably find numerous examples like this.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThat quote was from Dec 2105 before primary voting had even started. I was very clear that Trump was not my preferred candidate during the primaries. However, I could not dispute what he did in the primaries. That caused me to alter my view of what he could do.
Beginning in May when it was clear that HIllary was the nominee is when the real choice in the General Election had to be made. If you check the record from that point forward I think you will see that I was pretty consistent in Trump's chances. I stopped short of saying he would definitely win. However, I said it was his to lose.
That may be true, but I believe you like many others stated numerous times that people ought not vote for trump in the primaries as he'd have little chance of defeating Hillary. When I'm fact he single-handedly saved the GOP while completely dismantling the DNC. As Trump would say...Bad Instincts.
DeleteI defer to you on instincts if you were on the Trump Train from the beginning. My concern during the Primaries was not so much that Trump could not beat Hillary as he might not be able to beat Sanders or Biden. In fact, I stated that I believed that there was a 50/50 chance that Hillary would not get the nomination because of the email scandal. LIttle did I realize how big the fix was in for her.
DeleteTrump deserves all the credit in the world. However, 8 years of Barack Obama have had as much to do with saving the GOP as anything. None of what has occurred over the last 8 years would have been possible without his failures.
Ross,
ReplyDeletePopular votes are still being counted. Hillary is up by .3% largely due to overwhelming numbers in two states-California and New York. Exit polls I cited are all based on national exit poll data based on the popular vote. Stats are correct for how people voted when you look deeper at the population.
The numbers cited have nothing to do with the electoral college vote which is merely a state by state vote. Trump has won 30 states at this point. Hillary 18 with Michigan and New Hampshire still to be decided.