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It’s Time To Throw Old Political Assumptions Out The Window

It’s Time To Throw Old Political Assumptions Out The Window

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet. 

As Americans try to understand what’s happening to the country and why Donald Trump was elected president, some stunning statistics and analysis are emerging.

Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote, but fell behind in the Electoral College after Trump won by slim margins in Rust Belt states that have voted for Democratic presidents for decades. In Michigan, Trump leads by 12,000 votes or 0.3 percent. In Wisconsin, he leads by 21,000 votes or 1 percent. In Pennsylvania, he leads by 67,000 votes or 1.1 percent. These razor-thin margins show that votes for third-party candidates had an impact that could have created a different outcome. They were not predicted by the media’s election day exit polls, raising integrity questions that bear some scrutiny.

While not all of the 2016 ballots have been counted, the county-level results, exit polls and campaign finance data all show a country where old political assumptions no longer hold. Here are 10 of the most striking new statistics and observations.

1. Eight million Latinos voted for Trump? Across the country, states reported that 131.7 million people voted in the 2016 presidential election. The national media exit polls found that 29 percent of Latino voters supported Donald Trump. In October, Pew Research said there were 27.3 million Latino voters this year, meaning that 7.9 million Latinos voted for Trump.

2. Fewer voters than Romney and McCain? The ballots are still being counted, but as of Thursday, Trump’s 59,791,135 votes are fewer than what Mitt Romney received in 2012 (60,933,504) and John McCain received in 2008 (59,948,323). In 2008, Barack Obama had nearly 10 million more votes than McCain, and in 2012 he had 5 million more than Romney. So what happened?

3. Millions were registered yet didn’t vote. In October, the country set a record with 200 million voter registrations. That was an increase of 50 million since 2008 and led many pundits to believe that 2016’s turnout would be sky-high. But it hovered around 130 million voters, just like in the past three presidential races. “From the data, voter registration does not translate to voter turnout and Trump victory is more a function of Democrats slowing down on turnout and less of Republicans increasing their turnout,” one analyst wrote, preparing this chart. Despite a vast get-out-the-vote operation, millions of Democrats stayed home.

4. Clinton has a 280,000 vote lead, but loses. For the second time since 2000, a Democrat won more popular votes than a Republican yet lost the White House. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped a Florida recount, giving the presidency to George W. Bush. This time, the Electoral College is to blame. As Atlantic editor Derek Thompson tweeted, “Without the Electoral College, narrative would be: Trump so unpopular that Clinton got 6 million fewer votes than 2012 BHO [Barack Hussein Obama] and still won.”

5. Twelve states had 94 percent of all events. All eligible Americans can vote, but the president is elected by battleground states. Ninety-four percent of 2016’s campaign events with candidates (not including fundraisers) were held in 12 states, with six states (FL, NC, PA, OH, VA, MI) monopolizing two-thirds of them, according to national popular vote advocates. That’s where most of the $2.6 billion was spent by the presidential campaigns and their allies, underscoring that all votes are not equal.

6. The biggest spending candidate didn’t win. Usually, the candidate or side that spends the most money wins because they can monopolize the airwaves. While the Electoral College count isn’t final, analysts calculated Clinton spent $2.79 million per Electoral College vote, while Trump spent $2.03 million per Electoral College vote. “The presidential candidate who spent the most money did not win,” Reddit’s whingdoodle noted. “The pattern holds true going as far back as 1968 except for Carter beating Ford in ’76.”

7. So close that third-party candidates could have affected outcome. This year’s third-party candidates, notably Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein, clearly took votes away from both candidates. Stein, who was a protest vote for many of Bernie Sanders’ supporters, could have stopped Clinton from winning in Michigan and Wisconsin, and possibly Pennsylvania. In Michigan, where Trump’s lead on Thursday was 11,800 votes, Stein had 50,700 votes. In Wisconsin, where Trump leads by 27,200 votes, Stein had 31,000 votes. But it gets more complicated after that, because there might be some Johnson supporters who would have voted for Clinton if he weren’t a different kind of protest vote. In Florida, where Trump leads by 119,700 votes, Johnson received 206,000 votes and Stein 64,000 votes. In Pennsylvania, where Trump leads by 68,230 votes, Stein had 49,000 votes. Stein supporters argued on a Reddit forum that Stein didn’t keep Clinton from the presidency, saying, “She still loses… See that red Pennsylvania in there?” But that’s not entirely persuasive, because these battleground states ended up with razor-thin margins. Third-party candidates may very well have affected the results.

8. There’s no guarantee Bernie would have won. It’s not clear that Sanders would have done better than Clinton if he were the nominee. As a region-by-region analysis pointed out, Bernie would likely have won in the upper Midwest. But then a Sanders surge slows down. He likely would have won the battleground states Clinton won, such as New Hampshire, Colorado and Nevada. But he would have done no better than Clinton in the South, where she gambled on Florida and North Carolina and lost both. And then there’s Virginia. “Even if Bernie won MI, PA, and WI without losing any other states, he does not win the presidency unless he also wins Virginia,” one analyst wrote. “So, what do you think? Does Bernie win Virginia?”

9. A populist uprising from the middle of where? It’s simply shocking to look at the county-by-county map to see where the country’s political balance was thrown from Obama to Trump. It’s only several dozen counties in northeast Iowa, western Wisconsin, Michigan and northwest Illinois that dramatically flipped from voting for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2012 to a Republican in 2016—with swings of 20 percent or more. This fulfilled last February’s warning by Center for American Progress demographer Ruy Texiera, who told MSNBC that a Trump victory was possible if his “message boosts turnout and margins with working-class white voters high enough in the Rust Belt and upper Midwest… even while alienating black and Latino voters. You could see a situation where someone like Trump could carry Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, maybe Pennsylvania… That starts to put a real dent in the Democratic coalition.”

10. Education is the new red vs. blue metric.The less educated a state’s population, the more likely they were to vote for Trump. Only six of the top 16 states with the highest percentages of people who only completed high school voted for Clinton (in descending order, MN, NH, VT, HI, ME, WA). The other 10 voted for Trump (in descending order, WY, AK, IO, MT, UT, ND, SD, NB, WS, KS). In contrast, the top 16 states with the largest percentages of people with a bachelor’s degree all voted for Clinton (in descending order, DC, MA, MD, CO, CN, NJ, VA, VT, NY, NH, MN, WA, IL, RI, CA, HI). And the top 18 states with the highest percentage of people with advanced degrees all voted for Clinton (in descending order, DC, MA, MD, CN, VA, NY, VT, NJ, CO, IL, RI, DE, NH, WA, CA, OR, NM, MN).

A Populist Rebellion?

It will be a while before the forces that propelled the Trump victory are fully known. There are questions to be answered about the exit poll discrepancies pointing to a Clinton victory in key states that was contradicted by vote counts later on Tuesday. The vehement rejection of Clinton by modestly educated people in rural areas who flocked to Trump and the apathy of registered voters to turn out also raises deep questions.

The new president has one more stunning statistic. Donald Trump enters the White House with the least experience in elected office of any president in the past 100 years. He has none at all. After Trump, the presidents with the least time in prior elective office are, in ascending order, George W. Bush, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy, and Richard Nixon. Conversely, the presidents with the most experience in prior office are, from the top down, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Harry Truman, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America’s retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of “Count My Vote: A Citizen’s Guide to Voting” (AlterNet Books, 2008).

IMAGE: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a rally with supporters at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina, U.S. September 20, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

#EndorseThis: Still Depressed and Berned Out? Try Funny Or Die’s New Medication

#EndorseThis: Still Depressed and Berned Out? Try Funny Or Die’s New Medication

For young voters still frustrated, even depressed by the outcome of the Democratic primaries, who may be wondering whether to cast a protest vote on Election Day, Funny or Die offers a cure in three distinct doses — “Jill Stein” or “Gary Johnson” or “Write In.” Carrying its satire of medical advertising and millennial angst to an inevitable conclusion, however, this upbeat message warns starkly of the potential side effects. Which are indeed darkly amusing as well as instructive — in a potentially very painful way.

Just click.

 

 

Protestavote – watch more funny videos
Harvard Poll: Clinton Leading Among Young Voters

Harvard Poll: Clinton Leading Among Young Voters

BOSTON (Reuters) – Democratic White House candidate Hillary Clinton is leading among likely voters aged 18 to 29, according to a Harvard University opinion poll released on Wednesday.

The former U.S. secretary of state had the support of 49 percent of likely voters, ahead of Republican rival Donald Trump’s 28 percent support, a substantially wider lead than Democratic President Barack Obama had over Republican former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at the same point in 2012.

National polls of voters of all ages also show Clinton leading, though by a substantially narrower margin.

Some 14 percent of respondents said they planned to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson, with 5 percent supporting the Green Party’s Jill Stein and 11 percent still undecided. More than one in three self-described Johnson voters said they were likely to change their minds before Election Day.

A majority of respondents, 51 percent, described themselves as “fearful” about the future of America, with just 14 percent of the 2,150 respondents saying they believed the country was headed in the right direction.

The sense of fearfulness was most predominant among white respondents, though 85 of black respondents said they believed they were “under attack” in modern American society.

Some 62 percent of respondents said they believed race relations in the United States would worsen if Trump was elected president. Twenty-two percent thought race relations would deteriorate if Clinton won the Nov. 8 election, with the plurality, 36 percent predicting they would stay the same.

The survey, conducted Oct. 7-17 has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, meaning results could vary that much either way.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Photo: Hillary Clinton arrives to speak during her California primary night rally held in Brooklyn, New York, June 7, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Gary’s Gaffe Track: These Are Johnson’s 5 Most Incredible Blunders

Gary’s Gaffe Track: These Are Johnson’s 5 Most Incredible Blunders

Gary Johnson’s entrance into the national spotlight hasn’t been the most graceful. The former Republican governor of New Mexico, who began his campaign in January, landed on the top of the ticket for the Libertarian Party alongside his perhaps better known running mate William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts. Together, the two form the first ticket of any political party to feature two governors since 1948.

The Libertarian Party bills itself as a kind of “something for everyone” type of platform; Johnson wants to legalize pot and lower taxes, but he doesn’t care about global warming because the sun will one day encompass the Earth. See? A party for the people.

Why then, is the Libertarian Party having such a difficult time garnering support? With a populace this dissatisfied with their options, it’s surprising the third-party darlings have yet to break the 10 percent mark (Johnson’s poll numbers have been steadily decreasing in recent weeks, down to 6.6 percent from a high of 9 percent).

If you ask the candidate, the issue is name recognition. But while Johnson—who quit smoking pot in April so he could run on “all cylinders” during the election—definitely increased his name recognition in recent months, it also became clear that Johnson has no idea what he’s talking about.

We compiled the following gaffe-track of Johnson’s five most incredible blunders.

1. “What’s Aleppo?”

Johnson’s quirks wouldn’t be totally disqualifying were it not for the candidate’s unparalleled propensity for forgetting integral details about major foreign policy issues. In early September, Johnson gave his most jaw-dropping interview to date, featuring a gaffe tailor-made for reinforcing critics’ concerns about the third-party ticket.

“What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?” MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mike Barnicle asked the candidate.

Johnson, visibly shaken by the question, searched the host’s face for clues. “About?” he responded.

“Aleppo,” Barnicle repeated.

Johnson smirked, trying—as he would later admit—to parse together what acronym ALEPPO could stand for. Of course, Aleppo isn’t in acronym, it’s a place. And if you’re running for president in 2016, (and even if you are not), it’s a pretty important place.

“And what is Aleppo?” he asked.

Barnicle, genuinely stunned by Johnson’s glib response, explained that Aleppo is the name of the Syrian city currently serving as the epicenter of one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises.

Johnson tried to recover, telling Barnicle he thinks Syria is “a mess,” but the damage was done; Johnson’s “Aleppo moment” quickly became the flub heard ‘round the world as critics and voters alike realized the Libertarian candidate lacked basic geographical knowledge pertaining to one of the biggest conflicts to date.

In an interview after the incident, Johnson blamed the error on being “human,” admitting he was “incredibly frustrated” with himself for blanking on details of Syria.

“I have to get smarter and that’s just part of the process,” Johnson said.

2. When he couldn’t name a single foreign leader he admires.

While the Aleppo flub certainly prompted Johnson to study up on the Syrian crisis, his late-night cram sessions apparently didn’t extend to the rest of the test material. In late September, Johnson had another “uh IDK” moment in a televised town hall alongside VP pick Weld.

Asked by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to choose a favorite foreign leader (“anybody,” Matthews pressed), Johnson once again found himself stumped.

“Mine was Shimon Peres,” Weld said, attempting to back up his running mate.

“You gotta do this,” Matthews responded. “Anywhere. Any continent. Canada, Mexico, Europe over there, Asia, South America, Africa—name a foreign leader that you respect.”

“I guess I’m having an Aleppo moment,” Johnson said, before insisting the leader on the tip of his tongue is “the former president of Mexico.” Johnson’s callback to his previous gaffe would have been funny, except he’s running for president of the United States, and when you publicly cop to needing to “get smarter” and then awkwardly prove you shirked that responsibility, it’s not super funny anymore.

Johnson went on to search, unsuccessfully, for the name of Mexico’s former president, when Weld threw him a bone and named Vicente Fox.

A full day later, Johnson once again tried to make light of his screwup. “It’s been almost 24 hours…and I still can’t come up with a foreign leader I look up to,” Johnson tweeted. Which again, would have been funny, but really isn’t.

3. When he declined to name Kim Jung Un.

In an interview with the New York Times last week, the Libertarian candidate attempted to sidestep another glaring example of his ignorance on foreign affairs.

Attempting to prove he for sure knows more about Syria than his “Aleppo moment” might suggest, Johnson drew a parallel between the United States’ direct and indirect killing of civilians in war zones and the deliberate execution of civilians by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

During that interview, the Times asked Johnson if he knew the name of North Korea’s leader.

“I do,” Johnson replied.

Asked to name the supreme leader, Johnson asked, “you want me to name… really,” before declining to do so.

Whether Johnson’s refusal to answer the question was another Aleppo moment or simply his response to feeling needled by the Times is unclear. Of course, the way to determine that was for Johnson simply to answer the question.

4. When he said his lack of knowledge of basic geography is good foreign policy.

In that same interview, Johnson argued that Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton is given more credit than she deserves because of her notoriously wonkish grasp of foreign policy issues, insisting she should be judged instead on her record of interventionism.

“Because Hillary Clinton can dot the i’s and cross the t’s on geographic leaders, of the names of foreign leaders, the underlying fact that hundreds of thousands of people have died in Syria goes by the wayside,” Johnson said, adding Clinton “bears responsibility for what’s happened, shared responsibility for what’s happened in Syria.”

“I would not have put us in that situation from the get-go.”

In a separate interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, Johnson repeated his point that his lack of geographical knowledge is, in fact, an asset to the presidency.

“But I guess because you can—you can dot the i’s and cross the t’s on foreign leaders and geographic locations, that now somehow you’re qualified to put us in that situation?” Johnson asked. “Hey, if that ends up to be the case, so be it. I guess I wasn’t meant to be president.”

There are plenty of arguments to make about Clinton’s penchant for interventionism, and Johnson would have plenty of ground to stand on if he’d put down the shovel and focused on the issue at hand. Instead, his bizarre interest in digging a bigger hole is clear. What other reason is there for basing an argument on your C-policy knowledge—especially when a president’s job, by nature, involves knowing foreign leaders and geographic locations? It’s great that Johnson doesn’t want to bomb other countries, but it’d be nice to know he could find them all on a map.

5. “Who’s Harriet Tubman?”

Some might excuse Johnson’s foreign policy blunders. Sure, he’s human, and foreign policy is hard, and there are a lot of people out there in the world—we get it. But this blunder from July is the kind of moment that makes it clear Johnson shouldn’t lead a fourth-grade history class, let alone the United Statex of America. Per the New Yorker:

“A few minutes later, an aide directed him to a room in the convention center that was named for Harriet Tubman. “Who’s Harriet Tubman?” Johnson asked. (After the aide reminded him who Tubman was, Johnson recalled that she will appear on a new twenty-dollar bill.)”

Current political figures and important geographical locations are one thing, but not recognizing one of the most influential figures in U.S. history (so influential in fact that she will replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, as Johnson evidently remembered) is another thing altogether. Sure, gaffes happen. But with libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, gaffes happen liberally.

Reprinted by permission from Alternet. Elizabeth Preza is an AlterNet staff writer focusing on politics, media and cultural criticism. Follow her on Twitter @lizacisms.