Nate Silver has an article up on 538 with the title "How Much Did Comey Hurt Clinton's Chances?" I give him credit for acknowledging that it is an important question, and that the only question is how much. Nevertheless there are two troubling elements in his analysis. The first is in this paragraph:
How much of that can be attributed to Comey? And now that Comey told Congress on Sunday that the emails on former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s computer won’t change his earlier conclusions about Clinton, should we expect her numbers to rebound? The cause and effect is hard to sort out. Clinton’s poll numbers were arguably a bit inflated in mid-October amongst a very rough period for Trump. And even before Comey, the media seemed eager for one last twist in the news cycle, so Clinton may have been due for a period of greater scrutiny one way or the other — for example, over emails from the Clinton campaign released by Wikileaks.
The Comey story became a story, in Silver’s view, because the media was so eager for one. I don’t see him saying he thinks there is anything wrong with this. The media wants to trash Clinton and they will use anything available to do it. This is just a fact of life. So, I never want to hear any more crap about self-inflicted wounds or a flawed candidate.
The next paragraph says this:
Donald Trump should get some credit, as well, for having been comparatively disciplined on the campaign trail. He’s gained about 2 points in national polls since Oct. 28, while Clinton lost 1 point.
Donald Trump gets credit for not acting like a total lunatic for a few minutes.
If anybody wants to know why HRC did not win this election by a double digit margin, here it is. She was running uphill and Trump was running downhill the, the whole time. Still, she’s going to score a solid win.
Against all this, she ran a great campaign.