Donald Trump

[sdreid]

Things can change but, the way it looks right now, Trump is going to win, especially if Gary Johnson takes his home state of New Mexico. That might throw the election into the House of Representatives where Trump would win by a 32 to 18 vote (each state gets one vote and 32 of the 50 House state delegations are Republican controlled).

Nothing really changed except Clinton began to work even less hard. In hindsight, it looks like the Democrats lost it when Vice President Joe Biden decided not to run.

[Zena]

Trumpslide

MAGA! Drain the swamp!

[caz]

Blimey, I just put the computer on and looked at the news. Very surprised here.

Well it just goes to show you do have to put your watch back decades if you cross the pond in a westerly direction.

I'm not terribly surprised, but my deepest sympathy goes out to all those who didn't vote for him.

Love,

Caz
X

[Jon Guy]

Great to see another fantastic turn out at the voting stations.

Democracy is a real pain in the arse when democratic procedures don`t go your way.

Hopefully, this result, and Brexit, will see a new attitude to politics, and that people can make the difference if they bother to get off their backsides.

I think next on the diary are the Germans removing Merkel, or is it Hollande going in France?

[Karl]

Well, I suppose congratulations are in order - I have never felt disbelief quite so strongly before.

[Abby Normal]

Congrats and best of luck to our new president.

[Karl]

Counting 120 million votes in one day, can't do it folks.
[/voice=trump]

[DirectorDave]

I think all Americans should go and sit on the naughty step.

[YomRippur]

There were bad indicators for Clinton pretty early on. As soon as Virginia became a super-tight race, I foreboded a Clinton disaster. She was supposed to win there handily, and yet only barely. If a state swings one way, it could lead to other states swinging the same way, and that was exactly what happened last night (and also what happened in 2012). Trump could end up taking 4 of Clinton's states, WI, MI (still counting), PA, and NH (still counting), and that would put him over 300, and might not have even needed Florida! And Clinton took none of his states. Other takeaways:

Ohio continues its streak of picking the winner.

Trump won Florida by 130,000 votes, which is only small margin, but a landslide in that state's standard!

Precious few people picked Trump to win, of course. But those who did did so a long while ago:

Professor Helmut Norpoth has correctly predicted the outcome since 1912 except in 2000, and his prediction model gave Trump 80-90% chance of victory several months ago.

Professor Allan Lichtman has correctly picked the president since 1984, and he picked Trump in September.

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore was not a Trump fan, but wrote a detailed article on why Trump would win back in July.

Many polls that showed a Clinton lead turned out to be false, of course. This election may have a profound effect on how polls will be conducted in the future, because some polling misfired badly, such as in Wisconsin. Most polls, as we know, were done on likely voters. But it was the UNlikely voters that made the difference for Trump this time, people who might not have voted in the past but was goaded into doing so by Trump.

Wisconsin turned out to be the clincher for Trump, since it was the first state he took from Clinton that she could not afford to lose. Many had thought either Florida or New Hampshire would be the decider.

[Mayerling]

Nothing really changed except Clinton began to work even less hard. In hindsight, it looks like the Democrats lost it when Vice President Joe Biden decided not to run.

Very possibly right!

[Mayerling]

There were bad indicators for Clinton pretty early on. As soon as Virginia became a super-tight race, I foreboded a Clinton disaster. She was supposed to win there handily, and yet only barely. If a state swings one way, it could lead to other states swinging the same way, and that was exactly what happened last night (and also what happened in 2012). Trump could end up taking 4 of Clinton's states, WI, MI (still counting), PA, and NH (still counting), and that would put him over 300, and might not have even needed Florida! And Clinton took none of his states. Other takeaways:

Ohio continues its streak of picking the winner.

Trump won Florida by 130,000 votes, which is only small margin, but a landslide in that state's standard!

Precious few people picked Trump to win, of course. But those who did did so a long while ago:

Professor Helmut Norpoth has correctly predicted the outcome since 1912 except in 2000, and his prediction model gave Trump 80-90% chance of victory several months ago.

Professor Allan Lichtman has correctly picked the president since 1984, and he picked Trump in September.

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore was not a Trump fan, but wrote a detailed article on why Trump would win back in July.

Many polls that showed a Clinton lead turned out to be false, of course. This election may have a profound effect on how polls will be conducted in the future, because some polling misfired badly, such as in Wisconsin. Most polls, as we know, were done on likely voters. But it was the UNlikely voters that made the difference for Trump this time, people who might not have voted in the past but was goaded into doing so by Trump.

Wisconsin turned out to be the clincher for Trump, since it was the first state he took from Clinton that she could not afford to lose. Many had thought either Florida or New Hampshire would be the decider.

An interesting point about the pollsters that I saw on television last night was that many young white men, when asked said they were voting for Hillary rather than Trump (who they voted for in the end) because it seemed socially correct to say Hillary. They felt that Hillary was "acceptable" because of all the negative aspects of Trump's character and methods. But they felt more comfortable with his so-called message of "Whites only entitlement again!" and "Making America "great" again!" In a year or so I hope they realize the enormity of their stupid mistake.

Well, to try to put a spin on this...at least it ends the "Clinton" revival. I voted for Hillary because she was a smidge better than Trump in terms of actual abilities in politics and in knowledge of what she had to know. That never meant liking her slavishly.

By the way, as of yesterday we've had three times (1984, 2008, and 2016) where the national ticket for one of the two main parties (Democrat, Republican, Democrat) had a woman on the ticket - in this last case, finally in the "Presidential" slot instead of the Vice Presidential slot) and in each case the ticket was defeated (popularity of Reagan over Mondale & questions of Ferraro's husband's underworld connections; idiocy of Sarah Palin to the fed-up voters, hurting McCain's reputation; Hillary's personality and serious questions about her as part of the Clinton legacy, the Clinton foundation problem, and the e-mails that never fully went away). I wonder how many more before we can get one who can win (don't yell "Boxer" - she may be cleaner than Hillary, but she'd be facing the same yahoos that just defeated her).

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Congrats and best of luck to our new president.

With all due respect Abby, in one or two years time I wonder if you will still feel that way.

[Hercule Poirot]

Time will tell

Time will certainly tell to the American people how bad a choice they made once again and why.

Cheers
Hercule

[Harry D]

Anyone else still laughing?

[YomRippur]

An interesting point about the pollsters that I saw on television last night was that many young white men, when asked said they were voting for Hillary rather than Trump (who they voted for in the end) because it seemed socially correct to say Hillary. They felt that Hillary was "acceptable" because of all the negative aspects of Trump's character and methods. But they felt more comfortable with his so-called message of "Whites only entitlement again!" and "Making America "great" again!" In a year or so I hope they realize the enormity of their stupid mistake.

The racial aspect of this election didn't hold much importance for me. After all, white voters helped pick Obama twice. The white votes have shown in the last few elections that they could go both ways, and that indicates their race doesn't matter much.

Another thing is that in EVERY election, the Dems portrayed the GOP candidate as racist, xenophobic, etc. If you do it too often, voters will tune you out eventually just like the boy who cries wolf, and that seemed to have happened this election. Funny thing is that after the GOP president left office, the Dems always end up softening and saying nice things about him (just like they do now with G.W. Bush). And that just adds to the distrust of them.

The report on rising Obamacare premiums, Clinton's email being back in the news, and Trump's relatively good behavior the final 3 weeks all helped him close the gap.