Voter suppression is real and it is awful. Republicans make it as difficult as they possibly can for people to vote. We all know this. However, there is this theory going around that Hillary Clinton lost because there were millions and millions of voters who absolutely loved her but didn’t vote for her simply because they thought she had a good chance of winning. If people didn’t vote for her (outside of voter suppression), then it’s because they simply didn’t like her that much, not because they were complacent. Her average in the polls with links below show that she didn’t have a great deal of ardent admirers nor a huge number of supporters of her candidacy. If she had, she would not have averaged below 47% in the average of the polls nationally and averaged at or below 47% in the polls in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
People vote for the candidates that they really like and they don’t vote for the ones that they don’t like apart from voter suppression. . If you really like a candidate, then you are going to vote for the candidate even if it looks like they are going to win. Hillary Clinton had 57% unfavorable numbers. If you don’t vote for a candidate, then it’s not because you think they are going to win convincingly ; it’s because you don’t like them that much. Forty three percent of the country liked her a great deal and supported her. Some of the 57% would consider themselves more leaning to the left, but they didn’t like her . There were only so many people who liked her which isn’t to say that she did not have a huge number of people like me who loved her. It is simply to say that the number of huge supporters of hers was not infinite. At some point well before we got to 65 million voters, we simply ran out of people who really liked her. Some who didn’t like her very much still voted for her. Others who didn’t like her very much didn’t vote for her.
None of the people (with the exception of those too young to vote or those who had some sort of catastrophe or faced voter suppression) who really liked her failed to vote for her. It’s astonishing to me that one would think that people who really liked Hillary Clinton didn’t vote for her because they thought she had a lead in the polls of 3.2% nationally . She averaged 46.8% in the average of the polls nationally which is not indicative of a super popular candidate. People in swing states know their votes determine who wins. She was up 3.4% and at 47.0 % in Michigan in the average of the polls. She was up 2.1% and at 46.8% in Pennsylvania in the average of the polls. Her turnout in Wisconsin was so bad that Mitt Romney in 2012 had more votes than Donald Trump did in 2016 in Wisconsin. She was at 46.8% in the polls. That doesn’t indicate that she was extremely popular in Wisconsin. She won 46.5% of the vote in that state. 12.9% of the vote in Wisconsin was third party or undecided in the polls. That indicates that she was deeply unpopular. If a presidential candidate has only 46.8% of the vote in a swing state, then it means that they are not that well liked there. If she had a huge number of supporters, then her poll numbers in Wisconsin would not have been at 46.8% in the average of the polls.
Either these people voted or they did not vote. If they voted, but skipped the presidential line, this theory is that they really liked her and voted but skipped the presidential line. Or they didn’t vote at all for anybody but they really liked Hillary Clinton. If they really liked Hillary Clinton, then they likely liked other Democrats as well. Yet, they didn’t vote for a single one of these candidates that they really liked. So, they didn’t have a single competitive race that they could vote for and they loved all of these candidates and didn’t vote for a single one of them. This theory seems absurd. A huge percentage of those missed votes are people who are infrequent voters. We are expecting a record 65% voter participation rate. In other words, 35% of voters are not going to vote in any presidential election. It happens one time a year. The alternative was Donald Trump. However, even though the alternative was Donald Trump, the adherents of this theory think that these people who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton really loved her and were huge supporters. What an odd theory to hold. They had a way to prove that they really liked Hillary Clinton. Vote.
Voting for president comes around once every four years. It takes one day at most and since people can early vote and vote by mail as well as on election day, they can usually avoid these difficulties. Voter suppression is something else entirely. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
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What has happened here in this diary is that we have put an end to this myth that complacency is what cost Hillary Clinton the presidency. This myth of complacency as the danger which must always be warned against every second and especially every second that there is a good poll has fully taken root here on Daily Kos. People have created this theory that the single greatest danger of this election or any election for Democrats is complacency and that this is the main reason that Democrats don’t vote and didn’t vote in 2016. The fact is that this is a myth ; it’s false. That doesn’t mean that some of you will stop warning Democrats on Daily Kos (of all places , the best place to find complacent apathetic people who don’t care if Donald Trump wins another term is not Daily Kos) every time somebody posts good poll numbers to beware of the bogeyman of complacency. It does mean that it has been demonstrated that this theory of the bogeyman of complacency as our primary danger is irrational.
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This is random, but I was watching tonight’s Lincoln Project and heard more falsehoods. It’s irritating enough that I am going to post it here. My apologies.
Rick Wilson may be good at producing attack ads, but he certainly doesn’t pay much attention to statistics. He said that to determine what the outcome will be in Florida, subtract 6 to 8 points from the Democrat. Everybody here knows that President Obama won Florida twice. Anybody here believe that he had a 6 to 8 point lead in the polls in Florida in 2008 and 2012 ? So, let’s test this. In 2008, Senator Obama was up 1.8 points in the average of the polls in Florida and he won Florida by 2.8 points. In 2012, Mitt Romney was ahead of President Obama by 1.5 points in the average of the polls in Florida and yet President Obama won Florida by .9 percent .
Friday, Oct 16, 2020 · 1:15:46 AM +00:00 · Dem
To be clear, she would have been a GREAT president and the dislike was not mostly based ( for most people) upon things that she had done wrong (although no candidate is perfect) ; it was mostly because people believed myths.
Friday, Oct 16, 2020 · 1:48:24 AM +00:00
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Dem
We are seeing a great commitment to a theory from people who can’t produce any data to support it. This shows a great deal of commitment and faith in this false theory. Frankly, I am impressed by the willingness of these people to ignore the data presented to them and cling to their theory even when they are shown that the facts disprove it. It’s fairly impressive and amazing.
Friday, Oct 16, 2020 · 1:57:15 AM +00:00
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Dem
There isn’t a monster under your bed or in your closet. There really isn’t. If this theory were true, she would have had 55% support in the average of the polls and then dropped to 47% in the election. Then, we would have had evidence that all of these people who liked her enough to at least say so in the polls didn’t show up to vote in the election. It wouldn’t have proven the theory correct, but it at least would have made it somewhat tenable. As it is, she had 46.8% as her share of the vote in the average of the polls and she won 48.2% of the vote in the election. She won a greater percentage of the vote than she had in the average of the polls.
Friday, Oct 16, 2020 · 2:11:46 AM +00:00
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Dem
If only 38% of registered voters have a favorable opinion of her (see link in diary from Gallup) and 57% of registered voters have an unfavorable opinion of her, then from whence comes this idea that she had that mass of supporters who loved her but didn’t vote for her. She led by 3 percent in the average of the polls. But voters were complacent.
Friday, Oct 16, 2020 · 2:34:56 AM +00:00
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Dem
People who don’t like a candidate aren’t likely to vote for the candidate. The problem there is not complacency ; the problem is that the voter doesn’t like the candidate. Complacency isn’t a problem if voters don’t even like a candidate. The problem is deeper ; the voter doesn’t like the candidate.
Is the reason a Trump supporter didn’t vote for HRC because they were complacent ? Really ? Or is that the Trump supporter didn’t support HRC and that’s why the Trump supporter didn’t vote for HRC ? See, I don’t think that the reason a Trump supporter didn’t vote for HRC was due to complacency regarding HRC’s chances. I think the reason that the Trump supporter didn’t vote for HRC was that they liked Trump and didn’t like HRC.
So, of course, a voter who doesn’t particularly like a candidate is less likely to vote for the candidate.
And clearly there was not some sort of drop off between her percentage of the vote in the average of the polls and her percentage of the vote in the election.
Thus, it is a myth that the main reason or even a significant reason that HRC lost was because of complacency. It is a myth that there was this huge group of voters who loved HRC and supported her candidacy but were too complacent to vote.
Friday, Oct 16, 2020 · 2:38:18 AM +00:00
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Dem
This is awesome priority of the paradigm stuff. The people who don’t even like a candidate didn’t vote for the candidate not because they didn’t like the candidate but because they were complacent. Wow ! What a theory !
Friday, Oct 16, 2020 · 3:34:28 AM +00:00
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Dem
If a voter doesn’t like a candidate or view a candidate favorably (38% favorable 57% unfavorable) , then it is likely that the voter won’t vote for the candidate and the problem wasn’t complacency. The problem was that the voter didn’t like the candidate. It doesn’t make sense to speak of the complacency of a voter regarding a candidate when the voter doesn’t view the candidate favorably.