Certainly racism, sexism, and overall voter dissatisfaction coursed through this election, but it's hard to look at the graph below without thinking of the sexism it represents. Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton got great marks from voters for how they conducted themselves during the campaign, but Trump was rated 13 points lower than Clinton, with just 30 percent of voters giving him an A or B grade to Clinton's 43 percent. Trump also had the lowest rating of any winning candidate dating back to 1988 by a total of 19 points.
Pew writes:
But voters’ “grades” for the way Trump conducted himself during the campaign are the lowest for any victorious candidate in 28 years. Just 30% of voters give Trump an A or B, 19% grade him at C, 15% D, while about a third (35%) give Trump a failing grade. Four years ago, most voters (57%) gave Obama an A or B, and after his 2008 election, 75% gave him an A or B.
For the first time in Pew Research Center post-election surveys, voters give the losing candidate higher grades than the winner. About four-in-ten (43%) give Clinton an A or B, which is comparable to the share giving Mitt Romney top letter grades in 2012 (44%) and 13 percentage points higher than Trump’s (30%).
And yet, President Trump, because it didn’t matter how well Clinton acquitted herself or how qualified she was.