WHAT HAPPENED? The demise of Hillary Clinton

Success consists of going from failure to failure without lose of enthusiasm. ~ Winston Churchill

This was not an exciting “election cycle”; there was no hope involved, only accusations and denigrations. We were politically exhausted by Nov. 8, and the turnout data have confirmed this. Voter turnout for all 50 states was 58.0% of eligible voters; in 2012 it was 58.6%; in 2008 it was 62.2%. This means more than 97 million eligible voters did not vote last week.

Too many Democratic voters simply stayed home. California had the 4th lowest state voter turnout of any state, just 51.8%. State turnout rates ranged from 74.0% (Minn.) to a trifling 34.0% (Hawaii). Although Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with a 1% margin, she will garner only 228 Electoral College (EC) electors. Donald Trump will win with 290. Many liberal-progressive Democrats understandably remain distraught and upset. I certainly empathize.

Although Republicans intimidated certain voters, and created deceitful barriers to reduce or eliminate likely Democrat voters from casting ballots, that is not the only reason she lost. More importantly, the Trump voter turnout was unexpectedly much stronger and broader than anticipated. Hillary Clinton’s loss wasn’t merely caused by what the Republicans did. It was also due to what the Democrats didn’t do.

First, the Democrats couldn’t hold together Obama’s 2012 coalition, and didn’t spend any real effort to peel away much of a sliver of white middle-class and lower-middle class voters who Trump focused on.

In my last blog, “Voter Turnout,” I mentioned that Clinton’s grand challenge for this election was to persuade more Hispanics, Blacks, women, millennials and college graduates to actually vote for her than they did for President Obama. Her campaign failed this challenge. Only 12% more women voted for Clinton than Trump; only 18% more millennials voted for her. Other published voter turnout analyses have stated that Trump won 53% of the white women’s vote. At this point, so soon after the actual election, there is a fair amount of conflicting information about the characteristics of voters and who they voted for. These discrepancies probably arise from differences between specific exit polls’ sampling methods and analysis. Nevertheless, the results are woeful.

The efforts Democrats undertook to entice Hispanics, Blacks, millennials and other pro-Democrat voters to vote for Clinton did not raise their turnout. In fact, initial turnout analysis indicates that Clinton’s support margins (the difference between people who voted for her and who voted for Obama in 2012) declined for Black, Hispanic and Asian voters, as well as for men and people who earn less than $50,000 per year.

In past elections, two key demographic categories for the Democrats – Hispanics and millennials - have been difficult to lure into voting booths. Again this time they didn’t vote enough or give her sufficient margins for her to win on Tuesday.

Nationally, only 11% of votes cast on Nov. 8 were by Hispanics, the same turnout as in 2012. No other turnout data are yet available regarding ethnicity/racial voter participation, but when they are I doubt they will show anything that speaks of a successful turn-out-the-vote effort for Clinton.

Second, Clinton’s campaign seemed to have forgotten the importance of the archaic, but elemental Electoral College. In close elections like this one, the EC can provide additional importance for the smaller-population states that Trump won.

She overwhelmingly won urban-dwellers (by a 24% margin), but lost small-city and rural voters (by a 28% margin). Guess what; the states away from America’s coasts with lots of small cities outnumber the fewer states with very large cities.

This is one reason why this election’s state-by-state results’ map resembles a landscape with  blue-tinged boarders (all of the west coast and the northern part of the east coast) and a very wide, red middle, with just 4 blue exceptions (CO, NM, MN and IL). It’s been a long time since the red middle has been as wide. Trump won 30 states, Clinton just 21, including Washington, DC. This landscape became the election victory for Mr. Trump, at Sec. Clinton’s expense.

The electoral bottom line: Clinton couldn’t get enough of her targeted voters in enough states to vote for her to win. Trump’s dark, nefarious, emotion-based appeal to “the forgotten” middle-class won the day, and is now changing the political panorama of the nation. 

VOTER TURNOUT: EVERY POLITICIAN’S CHALLENGE

It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting. ~ Tom Stoppard

Breathe a sigh of relief, it’s almost over. There are only two days left before this year’s election; can you count that low?

Seemingly forever, the media have been flooding us with a tsunami of election ads and information, including wayward stories about what young teenage girls’ views are of the election and the candidates. Really? I feel a deep sense of relief that November 8 is almost upon us. Despite feeling this bit of relief from “the election cycle” almost reaching its proverbial high noon, the anxiety accompanying the result more than whelms my passing feelings of reprieve.

And it’s not just me. Therapists across the country have reported a growing number of people seeking assistance from election-induced fatigue and trauma syndrome (EIFTS). I suggest you take this handy, insightful and quick quiz to determine if you’re suffering from EIFTS. Should your quiz score indicate you qualify for EIFTS assistance, don’t forget to thank Wolf Blitzer, Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reilly, along with The Donald and Hillary, among others.

More seriously, probably the most crucial challenge facing every politician in every election, including this one, is voter turnout. Getting people to actually vote, and vote for you, is of ultimate, prime importance. At this point the candidates and their surrogates still remain busy hoarsely making public speeches. Like Donald Trump’s mystifying decision to speechify in Albuquerque, New Mexico last week, a solidly-blue state this time around. But beneath the lecterns, their campaigns are franticly focused on nudging and cajoling likely voters to the polls. Far more concerning are some nativist Republican Trumpophiles who are erecting deceitful barriers to reduce or eliminate likely Democrat voters from casting ballots. Perhaps we should send them to jail.

It’s been a while since US voters have been so unexcited about casting ballots in a presidential election. What happened to Hope? In 2012’s presidential election just under 219 million people, accounting for 57.5% of eligible voters, cast their ballots, down from 62.3% in 2008. This modest voter participation/turnout rate ranks the US 31st out of the 35 developed democracies comprising the OECD.

The chart below illustrates the participation by voters’ racial/ethnic characteristics in the past 4 presidential elections. As shown, white and black voters participate more by a noteworthy margin over Hispanics and Asians. Despite significant efforts, getting Hispanics and Asians to actually vote has long been a dispiriting quandary. Hopefully the Democrats’ efforts over the past several weeks will be more successful this time.

Since 2000, a maximum of just 49% (in 2008) of Hispanics voted in any presidential election. In contrast, 66% of eligible black voters and 65% of eligible white voters on average participated in the past two presidential elections. Uniquely among the four racial/ethnic groupings shown in the chart, black voters have increased their voter participation consistently since 2000.

Percent of eligible electors who voted in presidential elections, 2000-2012 

Source:  New York Times

The relatively small voter participation rate for Hispanics is a particular challenge for Hillary Clinton, because they represent a growing, core constituency for Democrats.

Another constituency that has been targeted by Sec. Clinton’s campaign is millennials, who like Hispanics have a diminutive record of voting. In two of the media-designated “most important” swing states - North Carolina and Florida – less than one in five millennials voted in this year’s primaries; 15% in Florida, 18% in North Carolina. Hopefully far more millennials will vote rationally on Tuesday.

These disparities in voting participation exist in non-swing states as well. In California, an overwhelmingly blue state, only 17% of eligible Hispanics and Asians voted in the 2014 election. In that year, the California voting electorate was 60% whites and 18% Hispanics, which is far different than the state’s overall demographics. Actual California population demographics are 38% whites and 37.6% Hispanics.

Another important constituency for Sec. Clinton and Democrats has become educated voters. For once the Democrats have an advantage over Republicans. Because the more educated a person is, the more likely she/he will vote, and vote Democratic. According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) and the United States Elections Project,  54.9% of all voters nationally in the 2012 election were 60 years or older; just 16.3% were young people aged 18 to 29 years. From CPS data only 17.6% of people with less than a high-school degree voted in the 2012 election and just 29% of high-school graduates voted. In contrast, 59.9% of folks who have an advanced degree turned out to vote in 2012.

Finally there is the gender distinction between voters. In every presidential election since 1980 more women have voted than men. For our last national election in 2012 63.7% of women reported voting versus 59.8% of men. This translates into almost 10 million more women voters than men.

So who are the most reliable voters; voters that need the fewest nudges to get into the voting booth? Simply stated, the most dependable voters are female, older and more educated folks.

The above-cited voter turnout data illustrate why Democrats need larger and more effective get-out-the-voter efforts than Republicans. With the exception of women and college-educated people, Democrats’ target constituencies – people of color, urbanites and young people – don’t vote as reliably as the historically-targeted Republican electorate – white, middle- and upper-middle class suburban folks. Just ask Bernie Sanders.

Nevertheless, the white, non-college educated working-class people who Mr. Trump has apparently captured don’t vote as reliably either. Although it makes no difference for Tuesday’s election, the white working class has noticeably diminished over time. Two demographers have noted that in 1940 82% of Americans 25 and older were whites with no more than a high school education; by 2007, that figure had dwindled to 29%.

The waning prominence of white working-class people is directly linked to the electorate. In 1980 according to exit polls, 63% of the electorate was comprised of voters who were whites without a four-year college education. That had dropped 10 points by 1992, when Bill Clinton won the presidency. That election marked the last time exit polls would find whites without college degrees to be a majority of voters. By the time Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, just 39% of those who cast ballots were whites without college degrees.

For this and other reasons, white working-class men have reason to feel disremembered. That is until The Donald pledged to focus his ethno-nativist attention on them. As we’ve seen during the past year, some white working-class people remain vocal and motivated by ephemeral Trumpian messages.

My advice for those of you who haven’t yet voted is to make absolutely sure you do. Your vote counts, and can make a very real difference. The resilient, postive destiny of this great country depends on every eligible citizen to vote for Hillary Clinton. She is infinitely more qualified, knowledgeable and capable than her opponent. And unlike her opponent, she will keep our republic from heading over a precipice too fraught to imagine.