U.S. elections 2016 – the mornings after

Written by  //  November 22, 2016  //  Politics, U.S.  //  Comments Off on U.S. elections 2016 – the mornings after

The Morning After the Morning After for Blue People
‘The races are not equal’: meet the alt-right leader in Clinton’s campaign ad
Jared Taylor, a self-proclaimed ‘race realist’,
distanced Trump from the alt-right, the racially divisive fringe movement

Donald Trump Personally Blasts the Press
(The New Yorker) The fantasy of the normalization of Donald Trump—the idea that a demagogic candidate would somehow be transformed into a statesman of poise and deliberation after his Election Day victory—should now be a distant memory, an illusion shattered.
First came the obsessive Twitter rants directed at “Hamilton” and “Saturday Night Live.” Then came Monday’s astonishing aria of invective and resentment aimed at the media, delivered in a conference room on the twenty-fifth floor of Trump Tower. In the presence of television executives and anchors, Trump whined about everything from NBC News reporter Katy Tur’s coverage of him to a photograph the news network has used that shows him with a double chin. Why didn’t they use “nicer” pictures?
For more than twenty minutes, Trump railed about “outrageous” and “dishonest” coverage. When he was asked about the sort of “fake news” that now clogs social media, Trump replied that it was the networks that were guilty of spreading fake news. The “worst,” he said, were CNN (“liars!”) and NBC.
21 November
‘Hail Trump’: That’s how a group of white nationalists saluted the November 8 victory of the president-elect this weekend at the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, as seen in an exclusive video filmed by The Atlantic. The disturbing scene came during an after-dinner speech by alt-right leader Richard Spencer, who among other anti-Semitic and racist statements described America as “a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity.” His audience cheered, and many raised their arms in Nazi salutes. Trump has not endorsed these statements, of course, nor has he asked white nationalist groups for their support. But the sentiment is alarming.
20 November
All the President-Elect’s Conflicts of Interest
Donald Trump continues to maintain close ties to his businesses, prompting questions over how he’ll keep those interests separate from the White House
19 November
Schumer on Trump: ‘He was not my friend’
In a POLITICO interview, the minority leader addresses his relationship with the incoming president and the outlook for 2017.
Schumer has been busy building his own cabinet of advisers. He appointed [Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat up for reelection in 2018 in West Virginia] and liberal firebrand Sen. Bernie Sanders to his leadership team this week, pursuing a collaborative approach in which he’ll listen to nine voices from across the Democratic spectrum, then make up his mind.
Schumer criticized Trump for his appointments of Steve Bannon and Gen. Mike Flynn to his inner circle. Schumer declined to say he’ll vote against confirming his longtime colleague and occasional gym partner, conservative Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), for attorney general. But Schumer said he could if Sessions gives a “murky” answer on civil rights.
The New York Democrat also wouldn’t commit to working with Trump to scuttle Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which Schumer opposed. And Schumer provided only vague guidance on when or how often Democrats will use the Senate’s supermajority rules to deny McConnell the votes he needs to pass legislation.
“There’s a lot of troubling things coming down the pike,” he said. “We’ll have the votes to block any repeal of Dodd-Frank. How about ACA? We are totally against repeal.”
… The party’s increasingly liberal base will expect him to confront Trump and McConnell aggressively and without exception. But Schumer also has to look out for vulnerable Democrats from red-leaning states, who represent Democrats’ only hopes of eventually getting back to the majority.
18 November
For foreign diplomats, Trump hotel is place to be
(WaPost) Guests at the Trump hotel have begun parking themselves in the lobby, ordering expensive cocktails, hoping to see one of the Trump family members or the latest Cabinet pick. One foreign official hoped Trump, famous for the personal interest he takes in his businesses, might check the guest logs himself.
But several expressed concern that spending thousands of dollars on a Trump property could look like an attempt to buy access or favors.
12 November
Hillary Clinton’s Popular Vote Victory Keeps Growing
She is up by 1.8 million votes, with millions still being counted in California
(HuffPost) The Times’ Nate Cohn estimated on Saturday that there were a total of 7 million votes left to be counted nationwide. As of Thursday, more than 4 million votes had yet to be counted in California alone.
That means that Clinton’s lead will almost certainly grow in the coming days, as it has since election night.
A larger popular vote lead will not change the electoral college math and thus the election’s fundamental outcome.
But it comes as welcome news for progressives eager to cast aspersions on President-elect Trump’s political mandate ― and gives fodder to a nascent campaign to abolish the electoral college, which has defied the will of the voters twice in the past two decades.
The Alt-Right Hails Its Victorious God-Emperor
(The New Yorker) One of the political-science clichés that hasn’t been rendered obsolete by this election is that of the Overton window. In 1994, Joseph Overton, a think-tank analyst, described the epistemic range of public debate: ideas that fall within the window are acceptable; those outside it are unthinkable. The range of acceptable ideas does not always bend toward justice, but it does change over time. The alt-right rages against political correctness in the name of the First Amendment, but this is a canard. No alt-right dissident has been jailed for thought crimes. One of the innumerable ironies of this campaign was that the only credible threats to the free press—“If I become President, oh, do they have problems”—were uttered by Trump himself.
9 November
wapost-trump-triumphs

Hillary Clinton FULL Concession Speech | Election 2016
Highlights of Hillary Clinton’s Concession Speech and President Obama’s Remarks
(NYT) Hillary Clinton publicly conceded the election to Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, acknowledging the pain of the defeat in remarks in New York while calling on her supporters to accept that he would be president and give him a chance to lead with an open mind.
President Obama, speaking in Washington, also said that he would work to ensure a smooth transition to a Trump administration and that, despite their differences, we are “all rooting for his success.”
Speaker Paul D. Ryan proclaimed that Mr. Trump had achieved a political feat and earned a mandate by reaching new voters. Mr. Ryan said that he was certain that they would work well together on a conservative policy agenda.
Global markets swooned overnight but stabilizedas investors considered the possibility that Mr. Trump’s mix of policies might bolster the economy.. News of Mr. Trump’s election was met with a mix of shock, uncertainty and some congratulations around the world.

Donald Trump’s Election Victory Leads To Some Timeless Front Pages

aislin-nov-10-trump-2016This is how the world’s best cartoonists are reacting to Trump’s victory
With a mix of angry humor, barbed irony, and total disbelief, political cartoonists around the world are sharpening their pencils to illustrate something that can’t be explained in words: President-elect Donald Trump.
While some cartoonists are focusing on Trump’s misogyny, others are using their skills to highlight the racism and nativism that ran through his campaign. In most cases, the cartoonists are challenged to make the U.S. look more cartoonish than it’s become.
Many of today’s cartoons reflect a deep concern about the immediate future of a country that for centuries has been a beacon of democracy and freedom for those fleeing authoritarian regimes and economic chaos.

Putin says Russia ready to fully restore ties with U.S.
‘Long live Trump’: Philippines’ Duterte says wants no more quarrels with U.S

Anxious world leaders seek clarity on Trump policies
(Reuters) World leaders offered to work with Donald Trump when he takes over as U.S. president, but expressed anxiety over how he will handle problems from the Middle East to an assertive Russia and whether he will carry out a number of campaign threats.
Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders hailed the billionaire businessman and former TV show host, who won the leadership of the world’s most powerful country against the odds in Tuesday’s election.
China, a target of Trump’s ire during his campaign, appealed for cooperation. Mexico also struck a conciliatory tone, despite Trump’s insults to Mexican migrants and pledges to build a wall to separate the two countries. South Korea urged him not to change policy on North Korea’s nuclear tests.
Trump, who has no previous political or military experience, said after defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton that he would seek common ground, not conflict, with the United States’ allies.
In the election campaign, he voiced admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioned central tenets of the NATO military alliance and suggested Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defense burden.
Putin was among the first to send Trump congratulations.
Angela Merkel Issues Not-So-Subtle Warning To Donald Trump After His Presidential Win
“Germany and America are connected by values of democracy, freedom, and respect for the law and the dignity of man, independent of origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or political views.
“I offer the next President of the United States close cooperation on the basis of these values.”

Some Americans look to Canada, NZ as Trump surges to victory
(Reuters) Canada’s main immigration website remained down on Wednesday and New Zealand reported increased traffic to its website for residency visas from U.S. nationals as Donald Trump surged to victory in the U.S. presidential election.
Americans have often vowed to leave the country if their chosen candidate doesn’t win the election, but this time around some are actually preparing to do so after Trump stunningly won the Nov. 8 election.
A spokeswoman for Canada’s immigration department said the website crashed “as a result of a significant increase in the volume of traffic” as election results rolled in Tuesday night.

How It Happened: Donald Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton took many Americans—especially pollsters—thoroughly by surprise. It’s not clear yet why they were wrong, but a few key trends have emerged. Trump’s core support was thought to come from the white working class, and these voters turned out with tremendous enthusiasm. But about half of upper-middle-class voters also supported him, probably due to their dissatisfaction with the Affordable Care Act. Evangelicals also supported Trump overwhelmingly, likely because of his restrictive stance on abortion. All in all, Election Day had notable parallels with this summer’s Brexit vote in the U.K., both in terms of its causes—such as voters’ reactions against globalization and immigration—and its potential consequences.

What Are The Consequences? The immediate reaction from the stock market wasn’t great: The Dow dropped almost 800 points when Trump’s election was announced. But U.S. markets recovered by the end of the day. More long-term repercussions will likely be felt by poor Americans, who would lose access to health care and other social services if Trump’s planned cuts to taxes and government spending are carried out. Parents may see more opportunities to send kids to the schools of their choice—though many students won’t have the chance to benefit. Meanwhile, women and young girls may be disheartened—and even endangered—by the election of a man who’s bragged so casually about sexual assault. On an international scale, it’s not clear what will happen next, but Trump’s opposition to free trade and U.S. alliances could cause a major upset. And on a planetary scale, his rejection of policies and treaties intended to mitigate climate change could have a devastating effect.

After the Vote:  What’s left, for the moment, is a nation in pain. And that applies to all Americans—the Clinton supporters wounded by her loss, the Trump supporters fed up with traditional politics, and those who felt their conscience could support neither candidate. It also applies to the country, divided; to America’s time-honored systems; to the Democratic Party struggling to rebuild, and the Republican Party struggling to reunite. We can’t be sure what will happen next. But even those who opposed Clinton might well take a lesson from her concession speech. The pain, she said, will last for a long time—but we need to move forward.

World Is About to Find Out What Donald Trump Really Believes
By DAVID E. SANGER, MAGGIE HABERMAN and BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
(NYT) In Donald J. Trump’s private conversations and public commentary, one guiding principle shines through: The world is a zero-sum place, and nations, like real estate developers, are either on the winning side of a deal or the losing side.
Yet he also is the ultimate pragmatist, perfectly willing to dispense with seemingly core beliefs in return for negotiating advantage. That is why many of his closest supporters have long cautioned that the most headline-grabbing proposals of his run for the presidency should not be taken literally — they are guideposts, the supporters suggest, not plans. Even Mr. Trump once described his proposed ban on Muslim immigrants as a mere “suggestion.”
As he enters the Oval Office that Ronald Reagan — another populist pragmatist, but one who had served in public office before the White House — left nearly 28 years ago, the world is about to find out what Donald Trump really believes. Or at least what he is going to try to do, in partnership with Republicans who on Tuesday retained control of both houses of Congress.
… At home, his instincts often mix elements of what he has heard or read from the left and the right. His economic policy might best be described as “Big Government Conservatism,” a mix of major tax cuts, mostly for businesses, and a massive infrastructure program to rebuild the dank airports and collapsing bridges that he used in the campaign as a symbol of America’s declining status. It is a subject he comes to easily as a developer who wanted to get customers to his properties.
Experts who have looked at his proposals — many so vague they cannot be “priced” — have concluded that federal deficits will soar. And that gets to Mr. Trump’s willingness to entertain two completely contradictory thoughts at once, because rarely did he finish an interview or a debate without reminding listeners that a federal debt heading toward $20 trillion was a “disaster” that only he could fix. In his first year, he will have to square those two promises — or not.
So far, those proposals do not add up to a coherent strategy. The tax cuts come right out of the Republican playbook; the spending right out of the Democrats’ agenda of spurring the economy with government-led job creation. His commitment to preserve social programs is far more Obama than Reagan. His vow to rip apart the Affordable Care Act, the symbolic domestic achievement of the Obama presidency, adopts the favorite cause of the Republican leadership with whom he has often clashed.
… Mr. Trump’s views of the economy are also deeply rooted in his identity as a real estate developer. He regularly emphasizes the economic importance of making things, while rarely mentioning the service work that employs most Americans. He has repeatedly promised to revive the steel production, a line of work that now employs about as many people as a large medical center.
In fact, it is the era when America was making steel that Mr. Trump harks back to when he talks about the era when America was at the peak of its power. He noted in a March interview that in the late 1940s and early 1950s, “we were not pushed around, we were respected by everybody, we had just won a war.”
It is a view of American power that spills over into his approach to national security. He sees little long-term benefit from funding efforts to eliminate the root causes of terrorism. His mind goes to military solutions first. Few statements were more often repeated, or more heartfelt, than his vow to bomb the Islamic State, and “take the oil.”

Obama reeling from gut punch of Trump win
(Politico) President Barack Obama and his aides throughout the federal government have 10 weeks to nail anything and everything they can down, a crisis in management they’ll need to handle amid a crisis in politics, faith, the economy and the world order.
But they’ve already lost the chance to lock in Obama’s vision of America, one that is educated and pragmatist, multicultural, cosmopolitan and globalist.
Obama said for months on the campaign trail that he’d consider Donald Trump’s election a personal repudiation. And it was. The Senate and House results leave no question, as if there could be one.
A reality has slipped through their fingers. Four more years of a Democrat in the White House would make much of how Obama reshaped the government irreversible. A woman following a black man would drive home how there was no turning back to the old ways. Filling that Supreme Court seat would cement it for a generation.

As might be expected, the ‘mainstream media’ we have been following regularly, all of which bitterly opposed Donald Trump, are now trying to justify how very wrong they (and their pollsters) were by analyzing the campaign, the voters, the candidates’ personalities and the distribution of the vote. The collective wringing of hands may or may not serve the purpose of waking up party stalwarts in both parties to the errors of their ways – and encouraging them to re-think and reform before the mid-terms.

The Guardian has given us excellent coverage throughout the campaign and How the US election unfolded: an agonizing night that put Trump on top provides a gripping description of the impact of state-by-state results, while adding that the Globalisation backlash enters new phase with Trump win.
American political analyst and historian Thomas Frank complements these, scolding “Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there

What we need to focus on now is the obvious question: what the hell went wrong? What species of cluelessness guided our Democratic leaders as they went about losing what they told us was the most important election of our lifetimes?
Start at the top. Why, oh why, did it have to be Hillary Clinton? Yes, she has an impressive resume; yes, she worked hard on the campaign trail. But she was exactly the wrong candidate for this angry, populist moment. An insider when the country was screaming for an outsider. A technocrat who offered fine-tuning when the country wanted to take a sledgehammer to the machine.
She was the Democratic candidate because it was her turn and because a Clinton victory would have moved every Democrat in Washington up a notch. Whether or not she would win was always a secondary matter, something that was taken for granted. Had winning been the party’s number one concern, several more suitable candidates were ready to go. There was Joe Biden, with his powerful plainspoken style, and there was Bernie Sanders, an inspiring and largely scandal-free figure. Each of them would probably have beaten Trump, but neither of them would really have served the interests of the party insiders. And so Democratic leaders made Hillary their candidate even though they knew about her closeness to the banks, her fondness for war, and her unique vulnerability on the trade issue – each of which Trump exploited to the fullest. They chose Hillary even though they knew about her private email server. They chose her even though some of those who studied the Clinton Foundation suspected it was a sketchy proposition.

Mr. Frank should be remembered for his July piece Hillary Clinton needs to wake up. Trump is stealing the voters she takes for granted

The New York Times’ opinion makers are shocked and outraged:
The full Opinion report from The Times follows, including Maureen Dowd, Frank Bruni and other Op-Ed colleagues writing about the shock of last night.Ross Douthat, on Trump: “So we must hope that he has the wit to be more than a wrecker, more than a demagogue, and that his crude genius can actually be turned, somehow, to the common good. And if that hope is dashed, we must find ways to resist him — all of us, right and left …”Roxane Gay: “We need — through writing, through protest, through voting in 2018 and 2020 — to be the checks and balances our government lacks so that we can protect the most defenseless among us, so that we can preserve the more perfect union America has long held as the ideal.”Paul Krugman: “Is America a failed state and society? It looks truly possible. I guess we have to pick ourselves up and try to find a way forward, but this has been a night of terrible revelations, and I don’t think it’s self-indulgent to feel quite a lot of despair.”Tom Friedman: “How do I explain Trump’s victory? Way too soon to say for sure, but my gut tells me that it has much less to do with trade or income gaps and much more to do with culture and many Americans’ feeling of ‘homelessness.’”

The New Yorker’s John Cassidy (How Donald Trump Became President-Elect) does one of the better jobs of breaking down the votes, while dismissing some of the pre-election myths
He concludes:

“To be sure, these are just polling numbers, and pollsters had a horrible night on Tuesday. The network exit poll, however, is a huge exercise, in which several thousand researchers question tens of thousands of actual voters outside voting places all across the country. It is generally thought to be much more reliable than pre-election polls—but it did turn up some oddities, particularly in regards to people’s attitudes to Trump.
Just thirty-seven per cent of respondents to the exit poll said that Trump was qualified to be President; sixty-one per cent said that he was unqualified. In addition, only thirty-four per cent of the respondents said that he had the right personality and temperament to be President, and seventy per cent said they were bothered by his offensive remarks about women. According to these metrics, at least, Clinton’s numbers were much better. Fifty-three per cent of respondents said that she was qualified to be President, and fifty-six per cent said she had the right personality and temperament for the job.
And yet, on January 20, 2017, it will be Trump who will be inaugurated as President. Go figure.”

His colleague David Remnick calls the election results An American Tragedy and paints a grim picture of what we should expect:

There are, inevitably, miseries to come: an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court; an emboldened right-wing Congress; a President whose disdain for women and minorities, civil liberties and scientific fact, to say nothing of simple decency, has been repeatedly demonstrated. Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader who will not only set markets tumbling but will strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak, and, above all, the many varieties of Other whom he has so deeply insulted. The African-American Other. The Hispanic Other. The female Other. The Jewish and Muslim Other. The most hopeful way to look at this grievous event—and it’s a stretch—is that this election and the years to follow will be a test of the strength, or the fragility, of American institutions. It will be a test of our seriousness and resolve.

Politico turns the focus on How Democrats blew the Senate majority they knew was theirs, while also describing the inner workings of the Clinton campaign and how it saw the loss coming
“Democrats and many others are now in crisis, wrapping their minds around the reality of a President Donald Trump. But the crisis is sharpest in Clinton campaign headquarters: not only do they feel like everything is about to go deeply, collapse-of-America wrong, but it’s going to happen because she failed, and they failed her.
“Clinton and her operatives went into the race predicting her biggest problems would be inevitability and her age, trying to succeed a two-term president of her own party. But the mood of the country surprised them. They recognized that Sanders and Trump had correctly defined the problem—addressing anger about a rigged economy and government—and that Clinton already never authentically could.”

The Economist Intelligence Unit appears affronted by the news and huffs “Our US political and economic forecasts are under review following Mr Trump’s election victory. A new outlook will be published in the coming days.”

Mr Trump’s election victory will cause widespread alarm across the global economy, given his loose grasp of economic policy, unabashed political populism and tendency for contradiction. We expect to see wild gyrations in bond, stock and currency markets until Mr Trump provides some clarity on his policy agenda. Given this volatility, it is unlikely that the Federal Reserve (the central bank) will raise interest rates in December, as we had previously expected.

However, the Chief Economist is more sanguine:
Much will be written about what Mr Trump will do, and there is genuine uncertainty, as the president-elect has taken totally inconsistent positions on the same issues at various points in this campaign, leaving a range of professed positions for him to choose from.
I’d like to highlight the economic impact. The biggest risk I see is that Mr Trump feels the need to follow through on his anti-trade rhetoric by starting a trade war with China. The collateral damage could be large and many countries would be affected. Domestically, consumer and business confidence will take a short-term hit, but Mr Trump’s plans for tax cuts and infrastructure spending could give the US economy a boost in late 2017 and beyond. I’ve been calling for more government spending from those countries that can borrow cheaply, which the US can.

Vanity Fair, no friend of DJT, offers one reality check: In a Stunning About-Face, Wall Street Is Now Ready to Do Business with TrumpThus far, tragically, the big banks are rejoicing.

“… it didn’t take long for Wall Street to sober up, did it? At two in the morning, as it became irrefutable that Donald Trump had defeated Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States, stock markets around the world were in free fall. The Nikkei ended down more than 5 percent. U.S. stock-market futures were down more than 600 points. Some pundits predicted the market would fall by 1,000 points, or more, and boasted about it on Twitter. As bad as Brexit. As bad as the fateful day in 2008 when Congress first voted down the Wall Street bailouts.
“But the predictions that the sky would fall with Trump’s election already look like they won’t come to pass, at least not yet. At the opening bell and through much of the morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was in positive territory, much to the shock of CNBC and other market prognosticators. (It hasn’t been a particularly good 24 hours for the soothsaying business.) And with good reason. Once the stunning news of the improbable Trump victory had been absorbed—and it was a substantial body blow to much of the elites on Wall Street, in the media, in academia, and lots of places that never saw it coming or hoped it wouldn’t—the reality is that what has been advertised as the Trump economic agenda should actually be pretty appealing to Wall Street and to the financial markets generally.”

Dow Jones closes near all-time high after initial 800-point dive
Auto, financial and oil sectors among biggest laggards as uncertainty grips markets.
A counterpoint is the moving (more anguished than angry) letter Aaron Sorkin wrote to his 15-year-old daughter Roxy and her mother in reaction to the election result.

On social media posts include Global study finds US and UK ‘neck and neck’ in battle for world’s stupidest nation along with reminders that Michael Moore accurately identified 5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win
John Parisella sounded a hopeful note on Facebook:
What a night ! He confounded pundits , pollsters , establishment politicians , media , etc. Donald J.Trump becomes the 45th President of the USA. Not a small feat and he deserves congratulations for his victory. Clearly, it is his to savour .
Many are examining last night’s results . Trump seems to be second in popular vote but wins a clear victory in the Electoral College . He succeeded in breaking the Democratic Blue wall including Pennsylvania , Michigan and Wisconsin -states considered as relatively sure bets for the Dems- never having voting for the GOP since over 7 elections for the White House . Why it happened will require much soul-searching as the early results indicate that the Obama coalition did not morph ,as hoped , into a Clinton coalition and the working class feels far less affinity with Democats than ever . The question now becomes : what kind of President will Trump become?
Most would agree that Trump won on a campaign of misinformation, insults, bullying, sometimes vulgarity, and never delivering an uplifting message. Playing on fears more than hopes, he tapped into a mood that most observers failed to decipher. My attitude NOW is to follow the transition period and the transfer of power which is fundamental to US democracy,and see whether candidate Trump is different than the eventual President Trump. Campaigning and governing are two different aspects in the process. Will Trump govern as he campaigned? Or, will he take a page from Ronald Reagan’s playbook and govern accordingly, open to working with both sides and compromising for the greater good, and thus surprise us all? The former would be a disaste, but the latter could be a welcomed surprise.

Bernie supporters on Twitter erupt in anger against the DNC: ‘We tried to warn you!’
The dominant mood on social media is that Clinton’s floundering election hopes are the fault of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for rigging the Democratic primary in Hillary Clinton’s favor. Popular pro-Sanders Twitter accounts are going viral over the news of Donald Trump carrying North Carolina and Ohio, and leading in other must-win swing states like Florida and New Hampshire.
While Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton just before the Democratic National Convention in July, many of his supporters remained adamant in their refusal to support the DNC-anointed candidate, pointing to WikiLeaks’ revelations that top officials at the DNC had been working behind the scenes to tip the scales in Clinton’s favor by coordinating with media figures to circulate anti-Sanders narratives.
Rather than attribute a potential Trump presidency to the GOP nominee’s perceived popularity among voters, the closeness of this election could be credited to Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable ratings. According to RealClearPolitics, anywhere between 51 and 57 percent of voters had a negative opinion of the Democratic nominee.

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