4 ms·

Not really a fair statement given the oddities of the electoral college. I know a lot of people in big coastal cities (New York, Boston, LA, San Fransisco, Seat

Not really a fair statement given the oddities of the electoral college. I know a lot of people in big coastal cities (New York, Boston, LA, San Fransisco, Seattle) who don't vote but are very anti-Trump. They know it doesn't matter because their states were always going to go strongly for the Democrats.

sgift 9y ago
I'm not from the U.S., so my knowledge here is a bit sketchy, but wasn't one of the problems Clinton had exactly that some states which always voted for the Democrats fell to the Republicans this time?
- rco8786 9y ago
  Not really. Both bases stayed pretty true to their colors.
  - dagw 9y ago
    That's a slight simplification. There where over 200 counties that voted for Obama twice and now voted for Trump.
    - rco8786 9y ago
      Right i wasn't including those in the "bases". 200 counties represents about 6% of the total number of counties in the country, and few of them are from states that "always vote for democrats"
- Pxtl 9y ago
  Well, sort of. There were several states that Democrats traditionally won federally, but those weren't the "safe" ones like new York and California. The big thing Trump took from the Democrats was the Rust Belt states - the old industrial places like Michigan, which usually vote for Democratic Party presidents but have strong Republican contingencies and often have Republican governors.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  The difference is that the Democratic party "rebased" itself. They've basically removed blue collar white people as a constituency that they focus on. This created a problem, as the get out the vote efforts from groups like unions and others were tepid as a result, and the GOP isn't stupid and courted these voters pretty heavily. The other thing is that the Democrats over-relied on minority voters as a key base, which didn't work out for a variety of reasons. I think strategically they missed the fact the ethnic voting requires an ethnic candidate. They also missed that certain key platform positions alienate ethnic factions of their voting base. In the old days, the Irish-Catholic political machines didn't run aging teetotaler baptists as candidates for a good reason! Basically, Mrs. Clinton ran a campaign that was divided, disorganized and poorly administered, which crippled her ability to make appropriate decisions. Trump's opportunism, marketing savvy, and tight team made his campaign agile and tightly focused on the objective. When the campaign had internal divisions, he purged the dissenters and moved on.
  - xienze 9y ago
    No, no, no, she lost because of Russian hacking! /s
Sacho 9y ago
It seems like those people didn't feel the electoral college was problematic. Otherwise, voting would have exposed the vast discrepancy between popular opinion and the college. Even if Hillary had won, that demonstration could be used to spur reform of the election process.
- tertius 9y ago
  Say the majority went up to 55%... We'd still need a lot more than that to change the electoral college. And honestly, having big states control who becomes president just because of their population, given how independent states should function, is a cornerstone of the electoral college.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
    A presidential candidate can win the election with only 21.91% of the popular vote. Something closer to that might be enough. However, I don't think that the electoral college could be changed because the parties responsible for changing it would be decreasing their electorates influence in the government which might be unpopular with said electorate.
    - tertius 9y ago
      > A presidential candidate can win the election with only 21.91% of the popular vote. That's great and might seem scary to some, but nothing close to that has ever happened.
      - boomboomsubban 9y ago
        From John Q. Adams' 31% win to Clinton's 43% win, it depends on what you call "close."
  - bluejekyll 9y ago
    > having big states control who becomes president just because of their population, given how independent states should function, This used to be true, but as more government control has been ceded to the federal government I don't believe this to be the case. The President is not all powerful either, this should be a fully democratic election. Also, the electoral college was broken when states started alotting their votes in a winner take all manner.

sgift 9y ago

I'm not from the U.S., so my knowledge here is a bit sketchy, but wasn't one of the problems Clinton had exactly that some states which always voted for the Democrats fell to the Republicans this time?

rco8786 9y ago
Not really. Both bases stayed pretty true to their colors.
- dagw 9y ago
  That's a slight simplification. There where over 200 counties that voted for Obama twice and now voted for Trump.
  - rco8786 9y ago
    Right i wasn't including those in the "bases". 200 counties represents about 6% of the total number of counties in the country, and few of them are from states that "always vote for democrats"
Pxtl 9y ago
Well, sort of. There were several states that Democrats traditionally won federally, but those weren't the "safe" ones like new York and California. The big thing Trump took from the Democrats was the Rust Belt states - the old industrial places like Michigan, which usually vote for Democratic Party presidents but have strong Republican contingencies and often have Republican governors.
Spooky23 9y ago
The difference is that the Democratic party "rebased" itself. They've basically removed blue collar white people as a constituency that they focus on. This created a problem, as the get out the vote efforts from groups like unions and others were tepid as a result, and the GOP isn't stupid and courted these voters pretty heavily. The other thing is that the Democrats over-relied on minority voters as a key base, which didn't work out for a variety of reasons. I think strategically they missed the fact the ethnic voting requires an ethnic candidate. They also missed that certain key platform positions alienate ethnic factions of their voting base. In the old days, the Irish-Catholic political machines didn't run aging teetotaler baptists as candidates for a good reason! Basically, Mrs. Clinton ran a campaign that was divided, disorganized and poorly administered, which crippled her ability to make appropriate decisions. Trump's opportunism, marketing savvy, and tight team made his campaign agile and tightly focused on the objective. When the campaign had internal divisions, he purged the dissenters and moved on.
- xienze 9y ago
  No, no, no, she lost because of Russian hacking! /s

Sacho 9y ago

It seems like those people didn't feel the electoral college was problematic. Otherwise, voting would have exposed the vast discrepancy between popular opinion and the college. Even if Hillary had won, that demonstration could be used to spur reform of the election process.

tertius 9y ago
Say the majority went up to 55%... We'd still need a lot more than that to change the electoral college. And honestly, having big states control who becomes president just because of their population, given how independent states should function, is a cornerstone of the electoral college.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  A presidential candidate can win the election with only 21.91% of the popular vote. Something closer to that might be enough. However, I don't think that the electoral college could be changed because the parties responsible for changing it would be decreasing their electorates influence in the government which might be unpopular with said electorate.
  - tertius 9y ago
    > A presidential candidate can win the election with only 21.91% of the popular vote. That's great and might seem scary to some, but nothing close to that has ever happened.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      From John Q. Adams' 31% win to Clinton's 43% win, it depends on what you call "close."
- bluejekyll 9y ago
  > having big states control who becomes president just because of their population, given how independent states should function, This used to be true, but as more government control has been ceded to the federal government I don't believe this to be the case. The President is not all powerful either, this should be a fully democratic election. Also, the electoral college was broken when states started alotting their votes in a winner take all manner.