The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election - Polidicks

[QUOTE]Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/oct-28-fbi-letter-to-congressional-leaders-on-clinton-email-investigation/2113/"]sent a letter to Congress[/URL] on Oct. 28. The letter, which said the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton’s lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the Electoral College. [B]The letter isn’t the only reason that Clinton lost. It [URL="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-had-a-superior-electoral-college-strategy/"]does not excuse every decision the Clinton campaign made[/URL]. Other factors may have played a larger role in her defeat, and it’s up to Democrats to examine those as they choose their strategy for 2018 and 2020. [/B] But the effect of those factors — say, [URL="https://theintercept.com/2016/10/07/excerpts-of-hillary-clintons-paid-speeches-to-goldman-sachs-finally-leaked/"]Clinton’s decision to give paid speeches to investment banks[/URL], or her [URL="https://hbr.org/ideacast/2016/11/why-the-white-working-class-voted-for-trump"]messaging on pocket-book issues[/URL], or [URL="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/is-the-media-coverage-of-hillarys-health-scare-sexist"]the role that her gender played in the campaign[/URL] — is hard to measure. The impact of Comey’s letter is comparatively easy to quantify, by contrast. At a maximum, it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points toward Donald Trump, swinging Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida to him, perhaps along with North Carolina and Arizona. At a minimum, its impact might have been only a percentage point or so. Still, because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the Electoral College. And yet, from almost the moment that Trump won the White House, many mainstream journalists have been in denial about the impact of Comey’s letter. The [URL="https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20161109090648/nytimes.com"]article[/URL] that led The New York Times’s website the morning after the election [URL="https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20161109085001/http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-president.html"]did not mention[/URL] Comey or “FBI” even once — a bizarre development considering the [URL="http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/uploader/image/2016/10/30/nytsat.png"]dramatic headlines[/URL] that the Times had given to the letter while the campaign was underway. Books on the campaign have [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/books/shattered-charts-hillary-clintons-course-into-the-iceberg.html"]treated Comey’s letter as an incidental factor[/URL], meanwhile. And even though Clinton herself has repeatedly brought up the letter — including in [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-blames-russian-hackers-and-comey-for-2016-election-loss/2017/05/02/e62fef72-2f60-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html?utm_term=.2aff2625bd4a"]comments she made[/URL] at an event in New York on Tuesday — many pundits have [URL="https://twitter.com/matthewjdowd/status/856324818345611265"]preferred to change the conversation[/URL] when the letter comes up, [URL="https://twitter.com/ron_fournier/status/856295724954390528"]waving it away[/URL] instead of debating the merits of the case. The motivation for this seems fairly clear: [B]If Comey’s letter altered the outcome of the election, the media may have some responsibility for the result.[/B] The story dominated news coverage for the better part of a week, drowning out other headlines, whether they were negative for Clinton (such as the news about [URL="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/24/obama-administration-confirms-double-digit-premium-hikes.html"]impending Obamacare premium hikes[/URL]) or problematic for Trump (such as [URL="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump"]his alleged ties to Russia[/URL]). [B]And yet, the story didn’t have a punchline: Two days before the election, Comey [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/06/us/politics/fbi-letter-emails.html"]disclosed[/URL] that the emails hadn’t turned up anything new. [/B] One can believe that the Comey letter cost Clinton the election without thinking that the [I]media[/I] cost her the election — it was an urgent story that any newsroom had to cover. But if the Comey letter had a decisive effect [I]and [/I]the story was mishandled by the press — given a disproportionate amount of attention relative to its substantive importance, often with coverage that jumped to conclusions before the facts of the case were clear — the media needs to grapple with how it approached the story. More sober coverage of the story might have yielded a milder voter reaction. My focus in this [URL="https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-real-story-of-2016/"]series of articles[/URL] has been on the media’s horse-race coverage rather than its editorial decisions overall, but when it comes to the Comey letter, these things are intertwined. Not only was the letter probably enough to swing the outcome of the horse race, but the reverse is also true: Perceptions of the horse race probably affected the way the story unfolded. Publications may have given hyperbolic coverage to the Comey letter in part because they [URL="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-electoral-college-blind-spot/"]misanalyzed the Electoral College[/URL] and wrongly concluded that Clinton was a sure thing. [B]And Comey himself may have released his letter in part because of his [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/us/politics/james-comey-election.html"]overconfidence in Clinton’s chances[/URL]. [/B]It’s a mess — so let’s see what we can do to untangle it. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/TU1QaJc.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] [url]https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/[/url] Fantastic article from Nate Silver at 538. It's a few days old but I hadn't seen it posted and figured now is a good a time as any with Comey fired.

Pure speculation given every major poll was wrong to begin with. It may have contributed some, but I doubt that alone caused her to lose the election. I still think she would of still lost if that letter never made it to congress.

Her not visiting the rust belt also fucked her. Also being a shit person in general.

[QUOTE=Rich209;52209978]Pure speculation given every major poll was wrong to begin with. It may have contributed some, but I doubt that alone caused her to lose the election. I still think she would of still lost if that letter never made it to congress.[/QUOTE] The polls weren't really wrong, though. Nearly every major poll was correct, and the states where she did fall behind the poll estimates were lost within the margin of error. What was wrong was the [I]extrapolation[/I] of the polls, wherein people looked at the commanding popular vote lead and failed to see that there [I]was[/I] a path to victory for Trump, if all the right conditions were met. Nate Silver was warning about that possibility up to the very last moment, and it's exactly that path that Trump ultimately walked.

Isn't this an opinion peace ?

[QUOTE=Llamaguy;52209980]Her not visiting the rust belt also fucked her. Also being a shit person in general.[/QUOTE] Oh do you know Hillary Clinton personally?

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52209991]Oh do you know Hillary Clinton personally?[/QUOTE] Shit candidate, I am sure is what he meant. Don't yell at the scarecrow please. That said, I am willing to place a pretty high wager that her personal charisma probably wasn't of the best quality...

While it is speculation that the letter cost her the election, I don't think it's wrong. Her lead dropped significantly the moment that letter was released. It was highly unusual for Comey to comment at all, the letter significantly oversold just how prominent Clinton's emails were within the Wiener files, and it turned out to be a whole lot of nothing anyway. The letter tipped the scales. Just the same, I don't really think it was Comey's fault in a grander sense. Clinton ran a fucking [I]horrible[/I] campaign. At the end of day, if she had ran a more thorough and honest campaign, she wouldn't have been so volatile for the witch hunt over her emails to hit her so hard. [editline]10th May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Itsjustguy;52209988]Isn't this an opinion peace ?[/QUOTE] We were allowing polls, poll conglomerates, and poll analysis services throughout the election, so I don't see a reason why we shouldn't now. It's a politics subforum: polls and polling data are pretty integral to the subject.

[QUOTE=Itsjustguy;52209988]Isn't this an opinion peace ?[/QUOTE] No. Read the article. [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52210002]While it is speculation that the letter cost her the election, I don't think it's wrong. Her lead dropped significantly the moment that letter was released. It was highly unusual for Comey to comment at all, the letter significantly oversold just how prominent Clinton's emails were within the Wiener files, and it turned out to be a whole lot of nothing anyway. The letter tipped the scales. Just the same, I don't really think it was Comey's fault in a grander sense. Clinton ran a fucking [I]horrible[/I] campaign. At the end of day, if she had ran a more thorough and honest campaign, she wouldn't have been so volatile for the witch hunt over her emails to hit her so hard.[/QUOTE] If I had a tl;dr for this piece, it would be this [QUOTE]The Comey letter wasn’t necessarily the [I]most important[/I] factor in Clinton’s defeat, although it’s probably the one we can be [I]most certain[/I] about. [/QUOTE] With a lot of the criticisms of Clinton's campaign you will find people agreeing on the broad strokes but it's hard to quantify exactly how much it hurt her, where as you can see a clear decline in the polls from the Comey letters release and the fact that it dominated the news cycle for the last week of the election.

[QUOTE=Itsjustguy;52209988]Isn't this an opinion piece?[/QUOTE] It kinda is, but does that invalidate the analysis? Clinton wasn't as far ahead of Trump as people would've had you believe, and the mantra that the Comey letter couldn't have influenced the election at all seems equally - if not more - grounded in pure opinion, considering what others cases have influenced public opinion. People seem to forget that just a percentage point separated Clinton and Trump in some states - enough states to hand either of them the victory. That's not to detract from the fact that Clinton was a shit candidate, but it isn't unlikely that this was the straw that broke the camels back and handed Trump the presidency.

[QUOTE=Revenge282;52209993]Shit candidate, I am sure is what he meant. Don't yell at the scarecrow please. That said, I am willing to place a pretty high wager that her personal charisma probably wasn't of the best quality...[/QUOTE] From what I've read, many who work with her like her, even those from across the aisle. She may just be better at intrapersonal relationships over interpersonal ones. I think not having a very good message for people to rally behind was worse though.

Christ, Lambeth, keep it on topic. On topic: I'm glad that someone is finally discussing this infamous letter. It was an incredibly important piece of this nightmarish puzzle that until now had been left out.

Remember: Comey didn't go public with Hillary's emails, CHAFFETZ is the one who published his letter to the public and damaged Clinton's public image in the media. Comey tried to warn Congress directly, and Chaffetz ran his letter to the media and turned it into a public gong show. Comey got on the bandwagon afterwards, but he didn't set out to turn Clinton's emails into a national clown show.

tbh Nate is probably just upset that his polls weren't accurate and is trying to justify it. [editline]10th May 2017[/editline] ffs the line he drew doesn't even align with the dropping in his polls

[QUOTE=matt000024;52210328]tbh Nate is probably just upset that his polls weren't accurate and is trying to justify it. [editline]10th May 2017[/editline] ffs the line he drew doesn't even align with the dropping in his polls[/QUOTE] 538 doesn't take polls, they run models that aggregate polls and output probabilities. On the day of the election, they had Trump at 30% chance of winning. 1 in 3 probabilities happen [I]all the time[/I].

[QUOTE=matt000024;52210328]tbh Nate is probably just upset that his polls weren't accurate and is trying to justify it. [editline]10th May 2017[/editline] ffs the line he drew doesn't even align with the dropping in his polls[/QUOTE] 30% chance of winning isnt zero percent. 1:2 and 1:3 probabilities are very likely to happen regardless of what you're looking at.

Probably. Probably not. [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;5221000]We were allowing polls, poll conglomerates, and poll analysis services throughout the election, so I don't see a reason why we shouldn't now. It's a politics subforum: polls and polling data are pretty integral to the subject.[/QUOTE] Just my two cents: we could stand to have this clause in the sticky to clarify what is and is not considered an opinion piece.

[QUOTE=matt000024;52210328]tbh Nate is probably just upset that his polls weren't accurate and is trying to justify it.[/quote] Can you explain how 538's aggregates weren't accurate? Did they weigh polls the wrong way? Does a prediction have to assign over 50% to the winner to be "accurate"? If so, am I inaccurate when I predict you have a 25% chance of getting tails twice in a row and you subsequently do exactly that? [quote] ffs the line he drew doesn't even align with the dropping in his polls[/QUOTE] Please tell where this line is gonna go: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/7kv8Q1Z.png[/IMG] Is it going to stabalize? Is it going to drop by half a percent, one percent, maybe even two percent? You can't really remove the signal from the noise here - maybe the whole thing was a reversion to the mean? Maybe only part of it was? Maybe it had already reverted to where it would settle without Comey's letter? We can say that the letter - considering it was dominating the news cycle - probably had some impact. Is a single percentage point out of the question?

Here's how I look at it: if Clinton were a better candidate and if the media were kinder to her, she'd have been 15 points ahead of Trump. Even with her mistakes and the way the media handled the email issue, she was 5-6% ahead in the polls, enough to win even taking into account the general polling error giving Trump some unexpected support. The Comey letter was the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of the baggage Clinton had on her, allowing a historically unqualified and unpopular candidate to win.

The important thing for all of us to recognize is just how narrowly Trump actually won. Ignoring his retarded 'biggest margin' bullshit, he won by such a narrow margin that we can wuite clearly see how something like this comey letter ultimately swayed the minds of all those last minute holdouts. Remember this was the most fiercely divisive election in ages There doesnt even need to be that many of them for this to be obvious, Florida was lost by a smaller margin than the number of people who voted for joke candidates. Honestly, were it not for this letter i think she would have scraped through.

[QUOTE=person11;52210681]Here's how I look at it: if Clinton were a better candidate and if the media were kinder to her, she'd have been 15 points ahead of Trump. Even with her mistakes and the way the media handled the email issue, she was 5-6% ahead in the polls, enough to win even taking into account the general polling error giving Trump some unexpected support. The Comey letter was the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of the baggage Clinton had on her, allowing a historically unqualified and unpopular candidate to win.[/QUOTE] The media was no more against her than the media was against Trump. Clinton had CNN vs the world, Trump had Fox vs the world. Clinton and Trump both gave the media ammo to shoot them down, you can't fault the media for using it. There are two things you can blame for the whole thing: 1) Clinton's failure to campaign, and her complacency during the general election 2) Chaffetz releasing the letter that Comey delivered privately, thus creating the shitstorm that you know as Clinton's e-mail scandal Clinton had the election in the bag if she campaigned with any effort, instead she chose to play the victim/woman shtick and no one cares to hear that in a presidential race.

I think more than anything, what should be taken as a lesson from this election is that if you choose a candidate with zero charisma and a propensity to lie more often than a copy machine spits out paper, they're going to lose. [QUOTE=Rich209;52209978]Pure speculation given every major poll was wrong to begin with. It may have contributed some, but I doubt that alone caused her to lose the election. I still think she would of still lost if that letter never made it to congress.[/QUOTE] Good job reading the article buddy, the OP even bolds the part that already says what you did. [editline]10th May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52209984]The polls weren't really wrong, though. Nearly every major poll was correct, and the states where she did fall behind the poll estimates were lost within the margin of error. What was wrong was the [I]extrapolation[/I] of the polls, wherein people looked at the commanding popular vote lead and failed to see that there [I]was[/I] a path to victory for Trump, if all the right conditions were met. Nate Silver was warning about that possibility up to the very last moment, and it's exactly that path that Trump ultimately walked.[/QUOTE] Well, the polls were right except in the area of the rust belt. 538 has a great (several) article(s) about why that is and how it could've been accounted for. [editline]10th May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=matt000024;52210328]tbh Nate is probably just upset that his polls weren't accurate and is trying to justify it. [editline]10th May 2017[/editline] ffs the line he drew doesn't even align with the dropping in his polls[/QUOTE] Except 538's polls [i]were[/i] accurate, more than any other pollster? Why do people keep saying this meme? He was right on his predictions to the election [i]again[/i] this time, but people are ignoring his articles and polls in the two months leading up to the election? He specifically stated two months before the election the rust belt would probably be the deciding factor in the election and that it was strange how Hillary Clinton wasn't paying the least attention to them.

[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;52211346] Good job reading the article buddy, the OP even bolds the part that already says what you did. [/QUOTE] I was actually considering italicizing that line and putting >> and << arrows around it to draw attention to Silver's acknowledgement of those things, because I know any discussion on the topic would invariably lead to "Here is the [I]real[/I] reason why she lost". Which is why I appreciate Silver taking the time to say that it wasn't the biggest problem with her campaign, but it was the biggest problem that can be easily quantified.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;52211451]I was actually considering italicizing that line and putting >> and << arrows around it to draw attention to Silver's acknowledgement of those things, because I know any discussion on the topic would invariably lead to "Here is the [I]real[/I] reason why she lost". Which is why I appreciate Silver taking the time to say that it wasn't the biggest problem with her campaign, but it was the biggest problem that can be easily quantified.[/QUOTE] The tl;dr you posted earlier sums it up quite well and should probably added to the OP in case people miss literally every other stop sign besides the title.

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;52210481]Can you explain how 538's aggregates weren't accurate? Did they weigh polls the wrong way? Does a prediction have to assign over 50% to the winner to be "accurate"? If so, am I inaccurate when I predict you have a 25% chance of getting tails twice in a row and you subsequently do exactly that? Please tell where this line is gonna go: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/7kv8Q1Z.png[/IMG] Is it going to stabalize? Is it going to drop by half a percent, one percent, maybe even two percent? You can't really remove the signal from the noise here - maybe the whole thing was a reversion to the mean? Maybe only part of it was? Maybe it had already reverted to where it would settle without Comey's letter? We can say that the letter - considering it was dominating the news cycle - probably had some impact. Is a single percentage point out of the question?[/QUOTE] It's already moving down days before that. The trend is only continuing.

[QUOTE=matt000024;52211748]It's already moving down days before that. The trend is only continuing.[/QUOTE] a trend to a mean is not the same thing as the crash she saw when the letter came out [editline]10th May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Revenge282;52210998]The media was no more against her than the media was against Trump. Clinton had CNN vs the world, Trump had Fox vs the world. Clinton and Trump both gave the media ammo to shoot them down, you can't fault the media for using it. There are two things you can blame for the whole thing: 1) Clinton's failure to campaign, and her complacency during the general election 2) Chaffetz releasing the letter that Comey delivered privately, thus creating the shitstorm that you know as Clinton's e-mail scandal Clinton had the election in the bag if she campaigned with any effort, instead she chose to play the victim/woman shtick and no one cares to hear that in a presidential race.[/QUOTE] I really don't think people turned away from her because of any woman card playing stuff. She just did not excite people and chose to run up the score in Arizona instead of going to a reliably blue state like Wisconsin. Lot's of research being done on Trump voters' motivations and they cared more about her email stuff or hating immigrants and muslims than any specific thing she said about her being a woman. Of course, it's a rather young field of research so I could still be proven wrong at some point.

[QUOTE=matt000024;52211748]It's already moving down days before that. The trend is only continuing.[/QUOTE] The trend to where, though? There's always a trend continuing, you're really pointing out nothing of substance here.