The Unprecedented 2016 Presidential Election

By Rachel Bitecofer

This book explains the 2016 presidential election through a strategic focus. In the primaries both parties faced challenges from insurgent outsiders riding waves of populist fervor in the electorate, but only the Democrats were able to steer the nomination into the hands of their establishment favorite. Why weren’t Republican elites able to stop Donald Trump from hijacking their party’s nomination?  Why did Hillary Clinton come up short on Election Day despite the fact that nearly everyone expected her to win after her opponent ran a haphazard campaign plagued by scandal after scandal? The research presented here argues that the Clinton campaign conducted the nearly perfect execution of the wrong electoral strategy, costing her the Electoral College and her chance to become America’s first female president. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Oct 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9783319619767

Book preview

© The Author(s) 2018

Rachel BitecoferThe Unprecedented 2016 Presidential Election https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61976-7_1

1. Introduction

Rachel Bitecofer¹  

(1)

Department of Political Science, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, USA

Rachel Bitecofer

Email: [e-mail]

Abstract

Bitecofer documents the many unprecedented aspects of the 2016 presidential primaries and general election. The historic candidacies of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders broke barriers and redefined our understanding of American presidential campaigns. Bitecofer analyzes the 2016 presidential election through the eyes of a political scientist. Drawing on decades of political science research on presidential campaigns, voting behavior, and political polarization, Bitecofer examines the strategic considerations made by the candidates and their campaigns as they battled first for their party’s nomination and then for the White House.

Keywords

Presidential electionPresidential primariesHillary ClintonBernie SandersDonald TrumpRepublicanDemocrat

According to searches of LexisNexis and the TV News Archive, the word unprecedented appears in American media coverage of the 2016 presidential election, 2505 original times by television outlets and 1005 times by major newspapers. From Donald Trump unlikely nomination to Clinton’s stunning loss on Election Day, the 2016 cycle was one for the record books.

The universal support that Hillary Clinton had from the Democratic Party’s establishment was unprecedented . Not even Al Gore , who ran for the party’s nomination in 2000 as the incumbent vice president, received as many early endorsements as Clinton. Her first elite endorsement came from Senator Claire McCaskill in 2013. A year out from the Iowa Caucus she had already amassed commitments from 60 Democratic Party super delegates, including 18 sitting senators, 40 members of the House of Representatives , and 2 governors. ¹

The size of the Republican field was also unprecedented . At seventeen declared candidates, the Republican field was by far the largest to ever compete for a party’s nomination . The field was not only large, it was talented. The field included four current governors, five former governors, four current senators, one former senator, two celebrities, and a former CEO of a Fortune 500 company. There were so many Republican candidates that the Republican National Committee (RNC) made a controversial decision. Rather than try to cram seventeen candidates onto one debate stage, they would host two separate debates and use national poll standings to determine which candidates would be invited to participate in the main event.

Some of the candidates’ campaign announcements were unprecedented . Bernie Sanders ’ official announcement came in the form of a ten-minute press conference on the lawn of the Capital Building. After brusquely stating his reasons for challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s nomination , he took only one question from an eager press pool before abruptly cutting them off to attend a vote on the Senate floor. ² Although Bernie Sanders ’ announcement was a no-frills affair, Ben Carson ’s campaign announcement was ostentatious. Carson’s announcement in Detroit featured a full gospel choir singing an Eminem song (both Carson and Eminem are from Detroit). ³ Not to be outdone by Carson on musicality, Mike Huckabee ’s announcement featured Tony Orlando singing a rousing rendition of Tie a Yellow Ribbon. ⁴

Fearing blowback from an over-the-top announcement, Hillary Clinton elected to announce her candidacy completely online. The announcement video’s theme was I’m getting ready. It showed average (but notably diverse) Americans discussing things they were getting ready to do before revealing Clinton, in her trademark pantsuit, announcing she was getting ready to do something too, I’m running for president. ⁵ Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal also used an online video for his campaign announcement. The video showed the Jindal family, obstensibly gathered around a table on the back porch of the governor’s mansion, discussing his decision to run for president. ⁶

Donald Trump staged his announcement speech in the opulence of Trump Tower. With former super model wife Melania by his side and throngs of supporters crowded around the surrounding balconies, Trump descended down the Trump Tower escalator from his penthouse apartment ⁷ to the tune of Neil Young ’s Rockin’ in the Free World to begin his forty-seven-minute announcement speech, the likes of which had never been seen before. With no teleprompter Donald Trump ’s announcement speech meandered between politics and self-promotion and included lines such as I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. ⁸ The media had never seen anything like it and were immediately transfixed. They figured that Trump’s candidacy wouldn’t last long but while it did he’d be ratings gold. Of course, they couldn’t have known then that they were looking at the next President of the United States of America.

Donald Trump ’s capture of the Republican Party’s nomination made history; an achievement only overshadowed by his even less likely victory in the general election . Trump’s candidacy adds many unprecedented elements to the 2016 cycle. He boycotted the final presidential debate in Iowa over a Twitter feud with a Fox News anchor and was the target of a movement to derail his candidacy financed by his own party’s biggest donors. On his way to the White House, Donald Trump didn’t just defy convention wisdoms he blew them apart, breaking almost every rule governing presidential campaigns along the way. And he did it without earning a single endorsement from a Republican member of Congress or Republican governor until three weeks after the Iowa Caucus . Over the entirety of the Republican primary , Trump earned just forty-eight elite endorsements total. ⁹

Although more conventional, the Democratic primary was also unprecedented . Despite not being a Democrat and being a self-described socialist, Bernie Sanders earned more than 13 million votes and won 23 states, not bad for someone whose main motivation to run was to hold Hillary Clinton accountable to the party’s progressive wing. At times, Sanders seemed awed by the throngs of fans crowding into sold-out arenas and concert halls to hear him speak. Despite a significant disadvantage in fund-raising, name recognition, and elite support, Bernie Sanders came less than 1% away from beating Clinton in Iowa , won New Hampshire handily despite a full court press by the Clinton campaign, and was competitive in the Nevada Caucus . Although ultimately unsuccessful, Sanders won 23 contests, 43.1% of the Democratic Party’s primary votes, collected 39% of the total delegates, and raised more than $235 million dollars; an impressive feat for any candidate let alone one that doesn’t even belong to the party whose nomination he sought.

The 2016 general election would offer more unprecedented elements. For the first time in history, a presidential nominee struggled to find a running mate. Several prominent Republicans took their names out of the running, including Senator Rob Portman of Ohio , Senator Marco Rubio of Florida , Governor Nikki Haley , Governor John Kasich of Ohio , Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, and Governor Susana Martinez of New Mexico. ¹⁰ The Republican National Committee struggled to find high-profile Republicans to take on speaking roles at the party’s convention in Ohio in July; a position that is usually coveted because of the stature and national exposure it brings. ¹¹ Both former presidents Bush and Ohio ’s Sitting Governor John Kasich announced they would not even attend the convention. Neither would Mitt Romney nor Senator John McCain, both former Republican nominees. ¹² The media indulged in breathless speculation about a brokered convention . Although that didn’t come to pass, Ted Cruz used his convention speech to implore conservatives to vote your conscious, eliciting raucous boos from the convention hall. ¹³

The Democratic Party’s convention was also mired in controversy. Despite endorsing Hillary Clinton two weeks earlier, the Bernie or Bust delegates still wanted a revolution. Working together, the Sanders and Clinton teams just barely contained an insurgency on the opening night of the convention. Passions had been stirred by the release of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee on the eve of the convention, leading to the resignation of the DNC’s chair just hours before the start of the convention. The attacks on the Clinton campaign by the Russian government in the 2016 election were unprecedented . Never before had a hostile foreign government interfered in an American presidential election.

The general election continued to deliver unprecedented aspects and events. Most presidential elections produce parity between the two campaigns. Both parties nominate experienced candidates with public service backgrounds who have robust support of the party’s establishment . Both campaigns raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars and once outside spending is factored in, usually come within just a few million dollars of each other in total spending. Both campaigns court favorable media attention and are loathe to do something that might invoke bad headlines. Both candidates sequester themselves for days before the first presidential debate and undergo extensive preparations. No candidate would dream of insulting the Pope or accusing a federal judge of bias due to his ethnicity, or spending a week waging a war against a Gold Star family . And no candidate would ever urge the Russian government to hack their opponent’s email, threaten to lock up their opponent if they win the election, or question the legitimacy of America’s electoral system. Until 2016, no candidate could ever win the American presidency after being outraised, outspent, and out-organized by their opponent. Yet Donald Trump did all of that and more on his improbable path to Pennsylvania Avenue: unprecedented .

An election that broke all the rules and defied all of the conventional wisdoms deserves to be fully dissected. To that end, the work presented here does not provide the traditional overview of what happened in the 2016 election. There are several excellent works by fellow political scientists that offer these analyses and do so far better than I ever could. Those books have been critical to my understanding of presidential campaigns and if you have not already done so, I urge you to read at least one of them prior to reading the research presented here. These books tend to explain the results of the latest presidential election by using what is known about how campaigns operate; their rules, norms, and best practices, to show how the better executed campaign triumphed on Election Day. As such, I expect their authors are having some trouble writing them this election cycle. Nor is this book one of the salacious tell-all books put out by political journalists and pundits with inside access to the campaigns. Those works capture all the intrigue of presidential elections, bringing the reader down into the political trenches, but they are not all that useful in terms of explaining why things happened the way they did.

Instead, this book analyzes the 2016 presidential election by focusing on the strategic decisions made by the candidates and their campaigns. Rather than focusing on what happened, this book focuses on explaining why things happened the way they did. Why was Donald Trump able to win the Republican Party’s nomination despite having the entire party establishment working against him? How did Hillary Clinton survive her 2016 primary challenge from Bernie Sanders but lose in similar circumstances against Barack Obama in 2008? Why did Clinton lose what many consider to be the most winnable presidential election in the modern era?

The research presented here answers these questions by drawing on decades of political science research on presidential campaigns, voting behavior, and political polarization . Chapter 2 sets the context of the 2016 presidential election. Rather than a singular event, the 2016 presidential election is best understood as the most recent chapter of a story that began decades ago. Over the past fifty years, America has undergone dramatic cultural, political, demographic, and technological transformations leading to an era of polarized politics. With one party immersed in a civil war and the other facing an emerging revolution, the stage was set for the unlikely candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders .

Chapter 3 recaps the paths that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took to win their party’s nomination . For Clinton, an unexpected primary challenge forced the campaign to compete for a nomination that was once inevitable. Coming from nowhere, Bernie Sanders ’ campaign tapped into the anti-establishment and populist sentiment of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party transforming his candidacy from a symbolic exercise into a powerful social movement. Meanwhile, despite being outspent and out-organized, Donald Trump won the Republican Party’s nomination by giving voice to rising right-wing populism and nationalism in the Republican base.

Chapter 4 examines the role that Donald Trump ’s manipulation of the media played in his success in the Republican primary . Via controversial statements and policy positions, Trump starved his competitors of earned media coverage. Trump dominated the 24-hour news cycle . In a cycle with twenty-one candidates, Donald Trump received more than 50% of all candidate mentions on eighty-nine days and exceeded 60% on twenty-one more. Every time attention waned Donald Trump would say or do something to draw it back to himself; proving the adage that any attention is good attention, at least for Donald J. Trump. In the eyes of the Republican electorate, he could do no wrong. The more critical the media coverage the higher his poll standings went.

Chapter 5 demonstrates how the institutional structures of the two party’s nominating systems affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential primaries. Despite a full frontal assault Republican Party elites had limited influence on the party’s nomination process. It was not from a lack of trying; Donald Trump did not pick up a single elite endorsement until three weeks after the Iowa Caucus . Over the course of the entire primary , he earned just forty-eight. Despite the fact that Republican Party insiders were lined up against him, they were unable to derail the Trump Train because of their limited influence. In the Republican nominating system, elite endorsements are merely symbolic, they do not carry substantive weight. Unlike the Democrat ’s system which provides party insiders a tool to exert direct influence in the party’s nomination process via super delegates, the Republican rules left the party vulnerable to a hostile takeover.

Chapter 6 recaps the major events of the 2016 general election starting with the party conventions and ending with Donald Trump ’s unexpected victory on Election Day. Both party conventions begin mired in speculation about brokered conventions and delegate revolts. Both parties face internal divisions over their party nominee ’s. Although Democratic Party elites are solidly behind Hillary Clinton , the Democratic base is divided. With Sanders’ loss, the progressive wing of the party is angry and deeply suspicious about Hillary Clinton . The Republican Party faced the opposite problem. Although the Republican base is solidly behind the party’s controversial nominee , Republican Party insiders are deeply divided. Many prominent Republicans boycotting the convention and refuse to join the ticket. As the general election moves on, the Trump campaign is plagued by scandals, most of which are unforced errors by their nominee . Heading into Election Day, Hillary Clinton ’s victory is all but guaranteed until the polls close in Florida , and the state’s 29 Electoral College votes are added to Donald Trump total. With one candidate earning 3 million more popular votes and the other candidate winning the Electoral College, the 2016 presidential election ended with one final unprecedented act.

Before turning to the general election Chap. 7 uses public opinion data to analyze voters’ evaluations of Clinton and Trump: the two most disliked candidates to ever run for president. When asked for the one word that best described Hillary Clinton , voters overwhelmingly chose the word liar. Top words for Donald Trump include racist, idiot, and crazy. Even partisans were wary of their own party’s nominee . About 50% of Democrats said that Hillary Clinton made them feel angry at least some of the time while 54% of Republicans reported being afraid of their own nominee at least some of the time. The only way either of these nominees were competitive to win the White House was by running against each other.

Chapter 8 dissects the two campaigns in terms of their campaign organization and resources. The analysis of the campaigns’ organizations reveals a significant talent gap between the two campaign’s management teams. Just two weeks before Labor Day, Donald Trump hired his third campaign manager. Although a longtime GOP consultant Kellyanne Conway had never run a major campaign and now found herself to be the first woman to ever run a Republican presidential campaign. The analysis then shows during the general election , the Trump campaign trailed the Clinton campaign in every metric: fund-raising, television ad buys, talent, endorsements , and infrastructure. The chapter continues by analyzing the major mistakes made by each campaign and the impact they had on the race.

Chapter 9 explores the strategic considerations Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton made in terms of selecting their running mates. With the selection of Senator Tim Kaine , the Clinton team embraced a persuasion strategy to win the general election . They would make the entire race a referendum on Donald Trump . They would win the White House, and even perhaps control of the Senate , by bringing in Independents and disaffected Republicans. In the end, the Clinton campaign conducted the nearly perfect execution of the wrong campaign strategy . Political polarization and partisan acrimony have left very little of the electorate persuadable. Despite structuring the entire campaign around them, the Clinton campaign makes virtually no in-roads among Independents. And without a progressive running mate on the ticket to mobilize Bernie Sanders supporters, many defect to third-party candidates or write-in candidates leaving Hillary Clinton just 77,000 votes over three states shy of becoming the