5 Reasons Why Donald Trump Won
By Chris Ryan
Concord, NH
1. FBI Director James Comey- Donald Trump’s entire general election campaign argument was based upon the rationale that Hillary Clinton was the leading symbol of an elite and corrupt Washington D.C. status quo. Her private email set-up was to hide corrupt ‘Pay for Play’ dealings and the Clinton Foundation was a money laundering scheme. Elections are decided by independent-minded low information voters. Many of whom I surmise were heading in Clinton’s direction prior to James Comey placing not is thumb, but his entire hand on the scale of this election on Friday October 28th. For many voters, the FBI Director re-opening the investigation was the final straw. The lack of information in his letter to Congress left it to everyone to determine what this meant, and allowed Donald Trump to close the deal. Independent voters who were wary of Trump and going to vote for Clinton were dismayed. They didn’t want to vote for her and surmised she would win regardless. They stayed home, or voted in down ballot races and she lost.
2. Clinton Campaign Strategic Blunders- Instead of cementing their map, the Clinton campaign tried to expand it. If she had won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, she is President of the United States. Instead the campaign spent countless candidate and surrogate hours and millions of dollars chasing the ball in Arizona, North Carolina and Ohio. Trump leads Michigan by less than 12,000 votes, won Wisconsin by 35,000 votes and Pennsylvania by 68,000 votes. Those three states turned the election.
3. Disaffected White Men- Many white males in this country have lost their sense of place, and tens of millions voted for Donald Trump. They have traditionally been the dominant figures in all aspects of culture, business and their homes. That has eroded. Donald Trump presents the person they want to be. He says what he wishes, and does what he wants with seemingly no ill-effect. This is something they wish they could do in the work place or the home, but have been biting their tongues. He’s successful, yet comes across like one of them. These individuals felt like America was leaving them behind in popular culture, politics and wherever progress meant more power for women, minorities, folks with a different sexual orientation or a divergent belief system. They wanted their country back and they headed to the polls to make it happen in record numbers.
4. Health Questions- The video of Hillary Clinton collapsing getting into her van after the 9/11 ceremony and picture of her being helped up the stairs were incredibly damaging. Trump ran a brutal ad that highlighted these episodes and made the argument she wasn’t healthy enough to deal with these difficult times. The campaign didn’t help themselves by not being forthcoming about the 9/11 episode for hours. Bill Clinton and CBS edited an interview in which he misspoke and said these episodes happened often.
5. Tim Kaine- I like Tim Kaine and he would’ve been a solid Vice President, but his being on the ticket was never going to, and did nothing to help her in this election. There were three people that should’ve been selected ahead of him, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Cory Booker and Labor Secretary Tom Perez. Clinton lost this election because of an inability to connect with rural white male voters. That is Sherrod Brown’s wheelhouse. Her campaign relied on the Obama coalition to win this election, but the Clinton/Kaine ticket did little to excite African-American voters. Cory Booker could’ve helped that. This election was also decided by who had the bigger silent majority, Trump’s suburban males or Clinton’s hispanic turnout. It was Trump. Perhaps the first hispanic ever on a national ticket in Tom Perez could’ve changed that. Regardless, any of the three would’ve been better than Kaine.
