Is the fact that both candidates had historically high negatives being ignored?

[NRQ891]

forget for a moment, whether Hillary's high negative were deserved, or what the root of them was. What can't be disputed, is that they existed.

Same with Trump - he had them too, and one can argue that his were deserved, in fact that he deserved higher.

But the fact is, they both had record high negatives, and that means a large number didn't like either

So a large number of people voting, were still voting for someone they didn't like. If you ignore this factor in post 2016 analysis, your conclusions about what happened are likely to be distorted at best

[zipplewrath]

1. No one knows what to do with it

You won't hear much discussion of it because no one really has any data with which to interpret it.

Hillary got some 6 million fewer voters than Obama in 2012.
Trump got some 2 million fewer.

That suggests that the GOP already lost all the fed up/disgusted/demoralized voters and Hillary had more of them to lose this time around.

Another way to look at it though is that this is effectively the second national "election" that Hillary lost. 1 primary and 1 GE. She's won one primary. She's 1 for 3. Trump was in his first national election. Her negatives could have been more "embedded" than his. His were fresh and more malleable. Hers had time to "harden". You build up a "I'll never vote for her again" kind of reputation running that much.

I suspect though that the real problem was that her campaign banked on her negatives being better than his and worked that angle almost to the distraction of anything else. That, and the presumption that her minority support would dominate. It didn't.

[NRQ891]

2. good points nt

[Fla Dem]

4. Not true that HRC recevied 6M fewer votes than Obama 2012. HRC received only 1.1 million fewer votes

than Pres Obama did in 2012, and they're still counting. You're also saying Trump received 4 million more votes than HRC, and that is simply not true.

Hillary Clinton received the 3rd largest popular vote in US History.

2016...Hillary Clinton........64,817,808.....Donald Trump........62,510,659
2012...Barack Obama........65,899,660.....Mitt Romney..........60,932,152
2008...Barack Obama........69,456,897.....John McCain..........59,934,814
2004...George W. Bush .....62,040,610.....John Kerry.............59,028,439
2000...Al Gore.................50,999,897.....George W. Bush......50,456,002
1996...Bill Clinton.............45,590,703.....Bob Dole...............37,816,307
1992...Bill Clinton.............44,909,326.....George H.W. Bush...39,103,882
1988...George H.W. Bush...48,886,597.....Michael Dukakis......41,809,476

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president

http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004332

And yes HRC had negatives. They were born of 30 years of RW slander, lies and media culpability. The whole "lesser of 2 evil" meme to make the election a horserace to pump up ratings and have something to discuss and analyze "ad nauseum" everyday. Tell me one time the "news" actually talked about issues, HRC's plans vs Trump's plans. Or the fact he wouldn't let the press ride on his plane, while HRC did and spoke with them everyday. Press gave Trump a pass while nailing HRC to the cross.

And of course there were other factors:

Her Latino vote was far greater than for Trump, but fell 5% below Pres Obama only in 2012, exceeded 2008.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/29/hillary-clinton-wins-latino-vote-but-falls-below-2012-support-for-obama/

Don't forget that Section 4 of Voting Rights Act Struck Down By the Supreme Court in 2013, allow many states with large minority populations to make voting less accessible to minorities, students and the elderly. Thousands of voting places were closed, ridiculous regulations /requirements for voting IDs were instituted. This had a major impact on minority turnout. But where is the media reporting on this shameful Jim Crow activity.

So yes we can say HRC's negatives did her in, but then we'd be ignoring a whole lot of other factors.

[zipplewrath]

5. Not my intent

We all know that HRC got more votes than Trump. It's just that Trump got fewer votes than Romney. But Trump won because HRC got even fewer votes that Obama did. It's why she lost.

[NRQ891]

3. I listened to NPR at noon the next day

and they had a call in show, the moderator framing the question to callers 'Either you're really depressed or elated today, and to call in and say why.

He totally missed it. A very large number of people, were unsatisfied with the choice they had. Someone with high negative, beat someone with high negatives. That could have been the headline, no matter what.

Failing to take this into account, when analyzing what happened, risks needlessly demonizing future potential allies (and by 'potential allies', I'm not even necessarily talking about people who voted for Trump - I'm talking more about people who didn't vote for either)

[LaydeeBug]

6. Yes. Only HRC's negatives mattered, because Russia said so, and Trump is Vladmir's chump, and so

is the media and the FBI

[djsunyc]

7. what i felt...

was recklessly ignored by the media was:

1. racism from trump
2. sexism from trump
3. russian interference

the media let him slide on all 3 accounts

[Paladin]

8. The only negatives that seem to count around here are HRC's.

Trump's negatives make whatever shortcomings she had seem minimal by comparison---but he seems to be getting away with it without much criticism. As usual.

[andym]

9. GOP set up Hillary for failure --negatives of both candidates WERE the key factors in this election

They had a long term plan to set up Hillary Clinton for failure (starting in 2013) and it worked out very well for them. They managed to get her favorables and trust ratings under 50% by mid 2015, and below 40% in time for the election-- that made her a weak candidate from the point of view of the political professionals. And some would argue the Democrats really had no really strong alternative candidate available. Yet, if it were not for Comey, she would have still won against an even weaker candidate, Trump.