Blog 1.5: What really happened in 2016?

Blog 1.5 

1. How popular were Clinton and Trump compared to past candidates for president?

    Both Trump and Clinton were unusually unpopular compared to past presidential candidates.

2. How much did minor party voting increase from 2012 to 2016?

    Because both party nominees 

3. How did Clinton's negative attacks on Trump, combined with minor party candidates, end up hurting her?

    Although a majority of voters acknowledged that Trump was unfit for the presidency, many ended up voting third      party, denying her the victory. 

4. How did Trump compare to Romney in 2012 among white voters?

    Trump received fewer votes than Romney: Trump had 45.95% and Romney had 47.15%.

5. How did Clinton compare to Obama in 2012 among the different groups of nonwhite voters?

    In each category of nonwhite, voters, Obama received more votes than Hillary.

6. How did college-educated voters vote in 2016?

    There were more white college-educated women and non-whites who voted for Hillary while a majority of the            non-college educated voters voted for Trump.

7. What was unusual about the choices of both major parties in the 2016 election?

    Both parties took the unusual step of nominating someone who was already well-known but unpopular by the            end of the primaries. 

8. What's wrong with attributing Trump's victory to racism?

    Trump did not discover that the white population wanted racism, but he also got a slightly smaller share of the          white vote that the more normal Mitt Romney.

9. What's wrong with assumptions that Clinton was wildly popular among women?

    Clinton was not in general more appealing to women that prior Democrats. She actually did worse with                    noncollege white women than did Obama four years before.