4 pieces of evidence showing FBI Director James Comey cost Clinton the election [View all]

[riversedge]

This is an older article but I will put here for Reference.


http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/11/14215930/comey-email-election-clinton-campaign




4 pieces of evidence showing FBI Director James Comey cost Clinton the election
And yes, it still matters.


Updated by Sean McElwee, Matt McDermott, and Will Jordan Jan 11, 2017, 9:40am EST


A scene from Hillary Clinton’s final campaign rally, in Philadelphia, November 7. Brooks Kraft / Getty




Donald Trump has called his election a historic landslide, but it was anything but. Only two other presidents have been elected with smaller popular vote margins since records began in 1824. His edge in the Electoral College, while decisive, depends on less than 80,000 votes across three states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) out of more than 135 million cast nationwide. It was a very close election.
The Big Idea logo This piece is part of The Big Idea, a section for outside contributors' opinions about, and analysis of, the most important issues in politics, science, and culture.

In a close election, there are a million reasons “why” it was close. Trump’s popularity with working-class whites. Turnout among the Democratic base. Campaign malpractice in the Midwest. Jill Stein. Millennials. Most are probably true in the sense they could move enough votes.

The Clinton campaign, however, has centered its why-we-lost narrative on the “Comey effect,” along with another outside factor, Russia’s hacking of DNC and Clinton campaign email accounts. The “Comey effect” refers to the impact of FBI Director James Comey’s October 28 letter to the House Judiciary Committee announcing the discovery new emails that appeared pertinent to their closed investigation of Clinton and his subsequent letter on November 6 that absolved Clinton (after millions of votes had already been cast early).

Many people — most notably Trump and other Republicans — have scoffed at the claim that the letter changed the outcome of the election, suggesting that it’s a convenient excuse for a weak candidate who made some questionable strategic decisions.

But the Comey effect was real, it was big, and it probably cost Clinton the election. Below, we present four pieces of evidence demonstrating that this is the case........................