Article Two of the United States Constitution provides that the President and Vice President of the United States must be natural-born citizens of the United States, at least 35 years old, and residents of the United States for a period of at least 14 years. Candidates for the presidency typically seek the nomination of one of the political parties, in which case each party devises a method (such as a primary election) to choose the candidate the party deems best suited to run for the position. Traditionally, the primary elections are indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The party's delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party's behalf. The general election in November is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors in turn directly elect the President and Vice President. (Wikipedia)
The 2016 presidential election was probably bound to be close right up through Election Day. Those who thought that America would vote for change could note that the contest would be an open-seat election, that America's standing in the world had declined noticeably in President Obama's second term, and that the Democrats had a serious nomination contest (always a chief harbinger of defeat in November for an incumbent presidential party). On the other side of the ledger, though, those who thought that the Democrats would secure a third straight term could point to steady if unspectacular economic growth in recent years and an inexperienced and controversial nominee for the challenging Republicans.
The contest ended up being the biggest political upset since 1948, and "Trumped," a compilation of fifteen essays by political analysts, looks back at how Donald Trump defied all prognostications to be elected our 45th president. The included maps, graphs, tables, and scatter plots in the book augment the analysts' explanations of voting blocs, coalitions, patterns, and trends, as well as polling and campaign finance.
"Trumped" also looks back at the heavy-turnout, memorable primaries for both the Republicans and Democrats, as well as the elections for the Senate, House, and governorships. This past Tuesday's special election in Kansas is a reminder that upcoming elections in America are never that far off, and some of the essays offer thoughts on what might happen in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election.
The essays in "Trumped" are of much more widely varying quality than were the essays in The Surge, the similar volume from two years ago that examined the 2014 midterms. Longtime readers of Sean Trende will not be disappointed with his great essay, and maybe about two-thirds of the authors attempted to provide even-handed analysis in their essays, regardless of what their politics were. The other third, though, were written by extremely partisan liberals...and read like it. While not as good as this team's 2014 effort, "Trumped" still offers enough to be a worthy read for political junkies interested in a chronicle of the unforgettable 2016 campaign.
Trumped is a fantastic non-biased empirically based analysis of the 2016 election. This is a book that answers questions through empirics, data, and objective facts; not with anecdotal and superficial observations based on nothing more than personal interest. The election was historical in many ways, but it broke precedent and left many observers scratching their head. Why did so many people get it wrong? Were the polls wrong? Were there warning signs ignored? Was there a hidden Trump vote? Did Clinton make mistakes or was she a victim of the media? Does the media bear any responsibility for misleading people about the election? Did people change their vote last minute? Put simply, what the heck happened??? Well here are your answers. No spoilers below.
First, what does the author mean by the election that “broke all the rules”? Well for starters, Trump won despite being greatly outspent by his opponent, won the electoral college by a wide margin while losing the popular vote by over 2%, speaking a constant stream of controversial statements that in the past would have likely destroyed a candidate, and even did all of this without full support of his party during the primaries and general election. All of this together is certainly unprecedented.
The book consists of 15 chapters each written by different authors who specialize in the topic they are writing about. After reading Chapter 1, you can read them out of order depending on your interest.
First I will review the book’s discussion of polls, as I know this is one area that everyone was completely outraged about that infamous election night. All over Twitter and Facebook on election night you saw “RIP pollsters” or “Every pollster should be tarred and feathered!” Or people still saying they will never trust polls again. Rest easy folks, this book walks you through what happened. Without giving you a spoiler the book shows while the polls may have been slightly off, they were not as off many thought. In fact polls taken in the last 2 weeks showed Clinton barely hanging on to enough states to win, and near all were well within a normal polling error. Indeed she did even out performed polls in some states (just not enough to win her the election). The book explores the issues of polling far more and will likely any questions you have about it still.
So what happened to that infamous “Blue Firewall”? A term to describe states like Michigan and Wisconsin that have been reliable Democratic states for over 20 years now. The book discusses that. For example, where exactly did Trump win the support that tilted the election to him? Unsurprisingly it was mostly the Rust Belt. WI, MI, OH, IA, PA, etc. All of those states voted for Obama, but Trump was able to win them, shattering the mythical “Blue Firewall.” But how? Why did all these people who have voted Democrat for decades switch to Trump? Many good hypotheses and answers are given.
The book also shows the areas that Clinton performed better than Obama. Despite losing there are areas and demographics Clinton did better than Obama did. Mostly college educated Whites and Latinos. Hence while she did better in states like California, Texas, Arizona and Virginia than Obama in 2012 and 2008.
To go off the last paragraph, the book has an entire chapter on the Latino vote. This was a fascinating one. Exit polls say that Clinton won only 66% of the Latino vote, a share lower than Obama. Many find that hard to believe. The book using more reliable precinct and registration data shows that Clinton actually won closer to 80% of the Latino vote. Hence that explains why she did fairly better than Obama in Arizona and Texas, even making the former competitive. Trump’s rhetoric was seen as possibly being so damaging to the GOP that Latinos would vote in droves for Clinton and possibly Democrats forever. This would give Democrats a huge edge in states like Florida and Nevada, and even begin to make Texas competitive.
The book also has great discussion on what made Trump appealing to voters across the aisle as he was very idiosyncratic and was indeed not a “typical Republican.” Trump’s talks of populism and nationalism differed from the other GOP candidates. Who did he appeal to and why? Was it racism? Was it populism? Did people like the way he spoke? Who supported him and why? This book does a great job through empirical data giving sound answers to all of that.
In conclusion, this book should be read by anyone interested in politics. It does a fantastic job of showing hard data, not anecdotal ideas, to explain the election. It utilizes charts and maps to help make information more readable and understandable. 2016 was no doubt controversial more than what is normal in American politics. The book is non-partisan and doesn’t take part in vilifying either candidate or primary opponents
No comments:
Post a Comment