Why Hillary Can't Claim Popular Vote Victory
In an interview with the New Yorker, Hillary Clinton makes the statement that she beat both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. She’s referring to the fact that she beat both candidates in the popular vote.
That’s like a losing football team saying that they actually won because they gained more offensive yards. Or a losing basketball team saying that they should have won because they grabbed more rebounds. If those were the metrics that determined who won, everyone would have played the game differently.
That’s like a losing football team saying that they actually won because they gained more offensive yards. Or a losing basketball team saying that they should have won because they grabbed more rebounds. If those were the metrics that determined who won, everyone would have played the game differently.
Likewise, if the popular vote is what determined who actually would win the presidency, the Republicans would have played their pieces on the board differently. The big fly in Hillary’s ointment is the state of California. Just this one state alone could have changed the way the popular vote turned out. Since Republicans knew they had little chance to win in California they didn’t waste their advertising dollars trying to win those electoral votes. And as a consequence, Donald Trump’s popular vote total was a lot lower than it would have been otherwise.
I’m not trying to say that Donald Trump would have won the popular vote. My point is that we don’t know who would have won that contest because everything would have changed. Had popular vote been the measure, Republicans would have shifted their war machinery to the large population blue states that they let go uncontested. They would have swarmed the suburbs with field offices and volunteers and saturated the airwaves with ads.
So for Democrats to say that Hillary would have won the presidency because she had a popular vote lead is pure propaganda. It’s possible that Donald Trump would have won by an even larger margin.
I’m not trying to say that Donald Trump would have won the popular vote. My point is that we don’t know who would have won that contest because everything would have changed. Had popular vote been the measure, Republicans would have shifted their war machinery to the large population blue states that they let go uncontested. They would have swarmed the suburbs with field offices and volunteers and saturated the airwaves with ads.
So for Democrats to say that Hillary would have won the presidency because she had a popular vote lead is pure propaganda. It’s possible that Donald Trump would have won by an even larger margin.
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