The Hillary Clinton/I-Blame-Everyone-But-Myself/Election 2016-Loss Tour Continues

 ELECTION 2016 
☑️ Donald Trump | 62,985,134 votes | 45.93% | 30 states (plus Maine #02) | 306 [304] electoral votes
Hillary Clinton | 65,853,652 votes | 48.02% | 20 states + D.C. | 232 [227] electoral votes
▸ Election 2016 Margins: Hillary (D): +2,868,519 votes | Hillary (D) +2.09 percentage points | Trump (R) +74 [+77] electoral votes
▸ Election 2012: Barack Obama (D–inc., re-elected) | 65,918,507 | 51.01% | 26 states + D.C. (332 electoral votes); Mitt Romney (R) | 60,934,407 | 47.15% | 24 states | 206 electoral votes
▸ Election 2012 Margins: Obama (D): +4,984,100 votes | Obama (D) +3.86 percentage points | Obama (D): +126 electoral votes
▸ Shifts (2012 to 2016): [R]epublican/Trump +2,115,581 votes | R+1.77 percentage points | R +6 states (+ Maine #02) | R +100 electoral votes

Hillary Clinton is at it again.

Just this week came this news report: Hillary Clinton: I won the places that are ‘dynamic, moving forward,’ while Trump's campaign ‘was looking backwards’.

2016’s losing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, while she was in India, was quoted with having said—among other observations—the following last Saturday [March 10, 2018]:

“If you look at the map of the United States, there’s all that red in the middle where Trump won,” Clinton said. “I win the coast, I win, you know, Illinois and Minnesota, places like that.”

“I won the places that represent two-thirds of America's gross domestic product,” Clinton continued. “So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward. And his whole campaign, ‘Make America Great Again,’ was looking backwards.”

Donald Trump won the 2016 United States presidential election, in a Republican pickup, with the 24 states, worth 206 electoral votes, carried by his party’s losing nominee from 2012, Mitt Romney. Trump then flipped six states (indicated in light red on the above electoral map): Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump also won a pickup of the 2nd Congressional District of Maine. Total: 30 states, plus Maine #02, for an initial electoral-vote score of 306. (Both Trump and Clinton had faithless electors. That is why I use the word initial.)


The analyses can be broken down this simply:

• In 2012, as the losing nominee, Mitt Romney carried three of the Top 10 populous states: Texas (38 electoral votes), Georgia (16), and a Republican pickup of North Carolina (15). Those are worth 69 electoral votes. The Top 10 populous states represent 256 electoral votes. So, the re-elected Democratic incumbent 44th U.S. president Barack Obama carried the other seven states and their 187 electoral votes. What did Trump do? He flipped four which were in the 2012 column for Obama. Naming them and where they rank: No. 3 Florida (29), No. 6 Pennsylvania (20), No. 7 Ohio (18), and No. 10 Michigan (16). Those comprise +83 electoral votes. Added to the Romney/Trump states and their 206 electoral votes, that was enough for Trump to win the election.
• Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore sensed it coming. And it manifest. Trump won Election 2016 primarily with his Republican pickups of a quartet of Rust Belt states: Ohio (18), a long-running bellwether state; Wisconsin (10), last Republican for Ronald Reagan’s re-election of 49 states and 525 electoral votes in 1984; and both Pennsylvania (20) and Michigan (16), last Republican for George Bush and his 40 states and 426 electoral votes in 1988. These four states comprise +64 electoral votes. Added to the Romney/Trump states and their 206 electoral votes, they were exactly enough to elect Trump.

I want to go over some more details just how badly Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.

• Losing Ohio and Florida were losing two bellwether states. But losing both Pennsylvania and Michigan was even more profound. Over the last ten [10] presidential elections of 1980 to 2016 (personal disclosure: I was ages 9 to 45 in those years), the only presidential loser—in both the Electoral College and U.S. Popular Vote—who carried both states was 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry. The two states voted for the winners in the five consecutive elections of the 1980s (Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Bush) and 1990s (Democrat Bill Clinton); for popular-vote winner Al Gore in 2000; for Democratic pickup winner Barack Obama in 2008 (and his re-election in 2012); and for Republican pickup winner Donald Trump in 2016. These two states are not passe. Pennsylvania and Michigan voted for 8 of the last 10 winners. When considering states’ reliability in voting for presidential winners, I would score states which voted for the popular-vote winners of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 with half-credit (while states which carried for those years’ presidential winners get full credit). Given 2000, you can add half-credit to both Pennsylvania and Michigan. So, this means Pennsylvania and Michigan were good for 8.5 of the last 10 winners—and that is a reliability rate, during this specific time frame, of 85 percent. Ohio is the only state which voted for all winners (full 100 percent). Nevada (carriage for 2016 Hillary Clinton) is at 95 percent. New Mexico (carriage for 2000 Al Gore and 2016 Hillary Clinton) and Florida (carriage for unseated 1992 George Bush) are at 90 percent. And then comes this Rust Belt duo at 85 percent. Pennsylvania and Michigan—demonstrating they were willing to vote for Obama and Trump (covering both major parties)—are not to be dismissed. (By the way: Fellow Rust Belt Wisconsin voted the same as Pennsylvania and Michigan, from 1980 to 2016, with exception of 1988. It was ahead one election cycle having flipped and carried for Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis.)
• Comparing the Democratic Numbers: 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton underperformed 2012 re-elected Barack Obama. The national 2012-to-2016 shift, toward Republican pickup winner Donald Trump, was +2,115,581 votes. The Rust Belt quartet of Republican pickups—Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—shifted 1,663,025 votes. So, 78.60 percent of Trump’s national shift came from just those four states. This is why I sum it up as Trump having won Election 2016 primarily through the Rust Belt.
• As the 2016 Republican presidential pickup winner, Donald Trump also flipped a host of [pickup] states’ counties (not in his political party’s column in decades). Among them: Wisconsin’s Kenosha (Kenosha, 1972) and Vernon (Viroque, 1984); Pennsylvania’s Erie (Erie, 1984), Luzerne (Wilkes–Barre, 1988), and Northampton (Easton, 1988); Michigan’s Isabella (Mount Pleasant, 1988) and Saginaw (Saginaw, 1984); Ohio’s Montgomery (Dayton, 1988), Portage (Ravenna, 1988), and Trumbull (Warren, 1972); Iowa’s Clinton (Clinton, 1984); Des Moines (Burlington, 1972), Dubuque (Dubuque, 1956), and Muscatine (Muscatine, 1984). This also happened with a county in a notable state which did not carry for Trump: Colorado’s Pueblo (Pueblo, 1972).

I would conclude that Hillary Clinton lost very badly. Not badly in a way like the wrong side of an electoral landslide (carriage of ten or less states). But, profoundly badly. To lose states—previously considered among the “Blue Firewall”—which hadn’t carried Republican since the 1980s. To lose state counties which hadn’t carried Republican since 1980s Reagan and/or Bush or 1972 Nixon or 1956 Eisenhower. To lose to one of her three suggested—as reported by WikiLeaks—“Pied Piper Candidates,” the ex-host of a NBC reality-competition series. That is bad. Profoundly bad.

This latest thing from Hillary Clinton is a reminder—but as just one more example—why it is good she is not the 45th president of the United States. (Since he is among 17 from the U.S. Senate’s Democratic caucus who recently joined Republicans to vote for possibly eliminating the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, I can also mention it is good Tim Kaine is not the 48th vice president of the United States.) Hillary Clinton is not only out of touch. Hillary Clinton lacks, to put it kindly, good judgment.


I leave this blog entry with a video covering this very topic from Jamarl Thomas. He includes a map of the United States which is based on the carriages of the United States’ 435 congressional districts for Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton.