Pundits and concerned citizens alike are trying to understand how Donald Trump won the presidential election when almost all barometers pointed toward a Hillary Clinton win. The fact that the popular vote in favor of Clinton has reached 2.5 million despite Trump winning the Electoral College, 306 votes to 232, is concerning to many.
Discussions abound about whether the Electoral College is relevant to today’s political landscape. Is it a good way to elect the President?
Sally E. Bahner Photo
Dr. Marc Schwartz and Professor Scott McLean
Scott McLean (pictured), professor of Political Science at Quinnipiac College, offered some explanations at the monthly Branford Forum talk at the Blackstone Library last Sunday, hosted by Dr. Marc Schwartz. Trained as a political theorist, McLean has written for The Hill, NPR, and the Washington Post.
An audience of about 60 listened intently and asked questions about what to expect for the next four years.
Electoral College Debate
McLean said that if 106,000 more people voted nationally – representing 0.09 percent of the electorate – Clinton would have won. Another factor is that the number of people voting for a third party candidate tripled from 2.4 million in 2012 to 6.9 million in 2016.
The Electoral College is set to cast its votes on the President and Vice President on Dec. 19. It’s not a simple process.
There’s also controversy within the Electoral College; one member resigned and a couple more have expressed the desire to vote for a more moderate Republican.
McLean said the Electoral College has never worked the way the framers intended. “It’s a peculiar system,” he said.
McLean said that the three swing states that won the electoral votes in favor of Trump were “micro close.” Pennsylvania, with 20 electoral votes, had a 0.08 percent margin (0.06 percent triggers an automatic recount). Michigan, with 16 electoral votes, had a 0.2 percent difference, and Wisconsin, with 10 electoral votes, had a 0.75 percent difference.
All of this begs the question: Should we scrap the Electoral College?
“Be careful what you wish for,” said McLean. He believes that by changing the election process to the popular vote would weigh the votes from swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to large metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles and New York. He said that people already feel their vote doesn’t count, which contributes to their sense of alienation. “There’s a lack of trust,” he said. “Various institutions are under siege… Congress, the media, military, medical establishment, courts, lawyers.”
In response to audience questions about changing the Electoral College, McLean said it’s not a simple process – it normally would require a Constitutional amendment. However a movement has been underway, know as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, in which states agree to award their electoral votes to candidates who win the popular votes. It was created in 2000 after Al Gore won the popular vote. It would become effective when enough states sign on to reach 270 votes. To date, 10 states have signed on and the momentum has increased since this election.
McLean said he likes the French election system, which is an automatic run-off system. The top two individuals elected then face off in another election in which the winner must get 50 percent of the vote.
Factors That Explain Clinton’s Surprise Loss
Various other factors came into play leading to the Trump win.
McLean posits that Trump needed the white working class, non-college educated voters to win the election and that’s what he got. It’s a group whose influence was underestimated by pollsters and media alike, perhaps because they have voted with Democrats in the past.
So why were the polls so wrong? McLean points to a “non-response bias” – people not answering the surveys who appeared to be among working class whites and conservatives; people with cell phones did not answer calls from unknown numbers. He said that people who did answer polls gave a “socially desirable response,” rather than sharing their real choices, describing it as the “hidden white vote.” In addition, he said, pollsters dropped the responses of people who had not voted in a few years, but they came out to vote in this election.
There was also an assumption that there would be low voter turnout.
McLean also described missteps in the Clinton campaign, including low ad spending and few visits to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. He added that Clinton voters may have been complacent and that many voters did not make up their minds until a few days before the election when they voted for Trump.
The Unlikeability Factor
Sally E. Bahner Photo
McLean said that the fact that both candidates were deemed “unlikeable” also affected election outcome. Although 49 percent disliked Trump vs. 29 percent disliking Clinton, they still voted for him. Seventy percent of those who were concerned about Clinton’s emails voted for Trump, but 65 percent of those whose dislike for Trump was based on the Access Hollywood videos still voted for Trump. Although Clinton was perceived as being more qualified, she represented the status quo and people were angry at the status quo, he said.
McLean discussed several other factors that determined the outcome, including the timing of FBI Director James Comey’s announcement of additional investigation into Clinton’s emails (and subsequent retraction a few days before the election), Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment, and the announcement of an increase in Obamacare premiums.
The Role of the Media
What did the media get wrong? McLean said the media went too far. “It was too focused on polls and didn’t talk about issues of fear or bias.” Getting more traction recently has been “fake news” and the pace and proliferation of urban mythologies – things that people believe are false. “This is all intensified by social media,” McLean said.
“Trump won’t stop using Twitter,” he added.
What Can We Expect?
McLean said we may expect some surprises from the Trump presidency, including Populists on both the Left and the Right and the Establishment on the Left and the Right. He said that Republicans “won’t be able to hold themselves together,” but neither will the Democrats by electing the same leadership. “They represent the liberal urban elite,” he said.
In terms of rumors about dismantling Obamacare, McLean believes it will be tweaked and rebranded as “Trumpcare.”
He said the administration will be talking about the same things with different expressions. “After all, Obama did deport a lot of people.”
He said that we’ll see imitators such as White Nationalists and Ivanka, who will have more power than the First Lady.
“Reagan was an actor who delivered lines, playing the president,” said McLean. “Trump plays himself, with a touch of authenticity.
“Trump is not as dumb as he seems,” said McLean. “He has people in place who know what they’re doing. There will be a lot of deal making.”
As an aside and lending a touch of humor to the talk was a graphic of Trump’s brain imposed on a profile photo – it was pointed out that the brain was backwards in the graphic, an unintentional error. (See top photo)
###
