Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/10/politics/why-donald-trump-won/index.html

Which theories have the most merit?

If you have a theory that isn't on that list, feel free to mention it. Really obvious stuff like black magic is off limits.


That last part is a joke, black magic is never off limits with me.

I believe Trump ran to cloud peoples focus on the experienced and valid candidates. Whether or not i am right his celebrity and message certainly baited the media and public away from asking important questions and thoroughly listening to the other candidates platforms.

It seems like a lot of conservatives waited to vote in the elections to see what the Republicans were going to by the primaries and by that time it was too late. The parties had been polarized

Is, he ran against one of the most corrupt politicians in modern history on the list?

Originally posted by Silent Master
Is, he ran against one of the most corrupt politicians in modern history on the list?

Nope, but "because voters believed the system is corrupt" is on there, but no nothing about her specifically being corrupt. In fact there is nothing blaming Hilary at all. The closest they get is when they refer to the entire democratic party. Oh and they blame the democratic committee too.

However, "Not millennials" is on the list. I'm not even kidding. It's #12.

I honestly had skimmed the article and the reasons when I first posted the topic. I genuinely didn't realize how much comedy gold is there. This is a Thanksgiving miracle. Bizarrely, "not racism" is there too. Keep in mind CNN pulled these theories from several different sources and put them all into one list, but there were some strange choices.

Another highlight for me was " Because rural Midwesterners don't get out of the house enough".

Didn't read the link, but I'd name a few in particular:

1. The Left didn't show up to vote. Maybe it's because they didn't like Hillary, or maybe it's because they thought she was definitely going to win anyway.

2. Third parties and protest votes.

3. White trash showed up to vote for Trump, although I think the effect of this is rather overstated - Trump got less votes in total than Romney or Mccain.

4. Comey.

5. Voter ID laws.

6. Honestly, chance. The margin in so many of the states was within the margin of error, but happened to align in a way that Hillary could win the popular vote but lose the election anyway.

In case people don't want to read the link or maybe they are viewing this on their phone and don't want to open up another page, I'll list the reasons. I know I like to use up as little data possible on my phone. I am going to just copy and paste the reasons directly from the article. So this isn't just how I'm wording it, it's how they are.

1. He won because of Facebook and its inability or unwillingness to crack down on fake news
2. Because of social media, generally
3. Because of low voter turnout
4. Because celebrity outlasts substance
5. Because of white women
6. Because of white male resentment
7. Because of Russia after all?
8. Because the left and coastal elites shamed Trump supporters
9. Because rural Midwesterners don't get out of the house enough
10. Because the Democratic Party establishment didn't push Bernie Sanders
11. Because Reagan Democrats surged in Michigan and Midwest
12. Not because of millennials
13. Because of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein
14. Because political correctness set off a nasty backlash
15. Because he simply listened to the American people
16. Because college educated Americans are out of touch
17. Because Americans are biased -- but not against any race, ethnicity or gender
18. Because voters believed the system was corrupt
19. Because he remembered 'forgotten men, women' of America
20. Because Democrats focused more on turning out supporters than growing the base
21. Because the Democratic National Committee selected the less competitive candidate
22. Not because of racism
23. Because of Comey
24. Not because of Comey

Originally posted by Surtur
1. He won because of Facebook and its inability or unwillingness to crack down on fake news


Actually fair. Trump had one of the lowest truth:falsehood ratio Politifact ever recorded, and lots of it involved debunked anti-Clinton conspiracy theories that circulated on Facebook (and on here, thanks to a particular poster).



Primary reason.



Yep. Trump's base was old white males without a college degree who disliked "the establishment", immigrants, and probably the LGBT community too.



Outright vote tinkering is unlikely, but they did apparently communicate with the Trump camp, and may have leaked those emails.



Underrreporting is possible, but probably doesn't explain everything; if Clinton got similar voter turnouts to Obama, she'd have won easily.



Very possibly.



Very possibly.



They didn't get how many stupid people there are, yeah.



AKA white males who felt marginalized but then targeted even more marginalized groups like undocumented immigrants.



That might be the opposite.



Basically.

My guess is that if you remove one of: Comey, white blue collar voters, or the low Democratic turnout, Hillary wins.

Definitely not because of the independent candidates. People really ought to stop blaming those poor schmucks.

Originally posted by ArtificialGlory
Definitely not because of the independent candidates. People really ought to stop blaming those poor schmucks.

In some swing states the Jill vote was bigger than the gap between Trump and Hillary.

Originally posted by The Ellimist
In some swing states the Jill vote was bigger than the gap between Trump and Hillary.
And? I sincerely hope you're not assuming Stein's votes would have gone to Hilary had Stein not been on the ballot.

Originally posted by ArtificialGlory
And? I sincerely hope you're not assuming Stein's votes would have gone to Hilary had Stein not been on the ballot.

If you put a gun to them and made them vote, I'd guess > 90% would go for Hillary.

Originally posted by The Ellimist
If you put a gun to them and made them vote, I'd guess > 90% would go for Hillary.
I think you'd guess wrong, then. Even still, there was obviously no gun put to their heads forcing them to choose. They'd sooner would have not voted at all, wrote-in Harambe, or even went with Trump.

Originally posted by ArtificialGlory
I think you'd guess wrong, then.


In what universe do that many Stein supporters go for a guy who disagrees with her on close to literally everything?



At the least it's break even, but it's fair to say that they're more likely to vote for Hillary over Trump if no "better" in their mind alternative existed.

Originally posted by The Ellimist
In what universe do that many Stein supporters go for a guy who disagrees with her on close to literally everything?



At the least it's break even, but it's fair to say that they're more likely to vote for Hillary over Trump if no "better" in their mind alternative existed.
Because of anti-establishment sentiments and plain old protest votes. And I think we all know who would get the protest votes.

I don't know, really. I think that staying home and looking at deviant porn would've been their best alternative if there had been no alternative on the ballot.

In the end, though, even if we give all of Stein's and Johnson's votes to Clinton(an impossibility), Trump still wins.

He won because of low voter turnout for Clinton.

He won because of lack of enthusiasm for Clinton.

And he won because he was able to get blue collar workers in states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania to believe his message on trade and the economy.

To be fair, I forgot to account for the fact that not all the votes have been counted yet; it's possible that the turnout for Clinton wasn't that low, it was just in the wrong states.

No matter what she's going to be at least a few million below Obama's 2012 number, and 8-10 million below his 2008 numbers. People were just not very excited for her.

Is she going to be a few million below 2012 Obama? I'm honestly not sure. But how many of those votes were cut into by Trump, and how many just didn't show up?

As for 2008, well, that will be difficult to replicate.

Originally posted by The Ellimist
Is she going to be a few million below 2012 Obama? I'm honestly not sure. But how many of those votes were cut into by Trump, and how many just didn't show up?

As for 2008, well, that will be difficult to replicate.

Those are the big questions. I believe it usually takes some weeks/months to complete the vote count in a national election. The complete numbers probably won't be available for a while.

I do think it's safe to assume that Trump did win quite a few of the white voters who voted for Obama in states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Many of these smaller counties in these states that were blue in 2008 and 2012 got flipped red.

1. Deleted emails
2. Democratic-leaning media outlets like Clinton News Network, MSNBC, Al-Jazeerrist
3. Bill
4. Weiner
5. Podesta
6. Comey
7. Assange
8. Wikileaks
9. Anonymous
10. Biased election polls
11. Great Wall of Trump
12. Obamacare
13. Obama
14. Millenials
15. Not millenials
16. BLM
17. LGBT
18. No moar guns
19. Socialism AKA Communism
20. Not Russia
21. Trump tapes
22. California
23. Make America great again
24. Time-Immemorial

Wow at #9. And they wonder why "The Midwest" would throw a party if either Left Coast did get flooded out by Climate Change.

F-U-C-K ALL YOU LEFT COAST ELITIST A-HOLE PLUGGERS!!!!

And I totally agree with a comment I heard the other day about People from Leftist Elitist States being made to get visas before being allowed to travel out of their "SAFE STATES".

Originally posted by AsbestosFlaygon
1. Deleted emails
2. Democratic-leaning media outlets like Clinton News Network, MSNBC, Al-Jazeerrist
3. Bill
4. Weiner
5. Podesta
6. Comey
7. Assange
8. Wikileaks
9. Anonymous
10. Biased election polls
11. Great Wall of Trump
12. Obamacare
13. Obama
14. Millenials
15. Not millenials
16. BLM
17. LGBT
18. No moar guns
19. Socialism AKA Communism
20. Not Russia
21. Trump tapes
22. California
23. Make America great again
24. Time-Immemorial
25. Harambe.

When it comes to the college kids it's definitely a case of people confusing intelligence with wisdom.

Or maybe it's been because Americans and the rest of the world wanted someone who hasn't explicitly promised to start world war 3?

Did that even enter the minds of people?

Originally posted by krisblaze
Or maybe it's been because Americans and the rest of the world wanted someone who hasn't explicitly promised to start world war 3?

Did that even enter the minds of people?

Also remember for all the talk of violent Trump supporters there is only one campaign that we know was actually planning in advance to start riots at Trump rallies.

People shouldn't forget about the corruption of the Clintons so quickly because that played a significant role in why she lost. I swear to god it seems like people are already just going to make the same mistakes all over again. It's barely been a few days and already the selective amnesia is kicking in.

This article: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-how-trump-won/

- explains it perfectly.

Originally posted by Silent Master
Is, he ran against one of the most corrupt politicians in modern history on the list?

Pretty much. Clinton thought Trump was so bad, he'd make anybody look better by comparison.

But the opposite kind of ended up happening. SHE was the one that was so bad, people were looking for any alternative.