The DNC E-Mails Didn’t Cause Hillary Clinton to Lose to Trump
January 7, 2017
There is an important source of evidence that’s being overlooked in all the noise about the DNC e-mails. It can be seen by looking at the graph of Clinton vs. Trump from the USC Dornsife / LA Times Presidential Election “Daybreak” Poll. This is one of a very few polls that got it right, predicting a Trump win; and it’s an excellent poll methodologically. This accuracy makes it a good source of evidence about how various events affected the election, such as the DNC e-mail releases in July, Clinton’s health problem in September and the Comey re-opening of the Clinton case on October 28. All we have to do is examine how this accurate poll shifted at the time of these events and shortly thereafter.
Hillary is the blue line; Trump is the red line. The poll takes us from July 10 to election day. The first Wikileaks DNC e-mails came out on July 22, 2016. Trump was 44.2 and Hillary was 43.2. Within 5 days, Trump moved up to 47.4 and Clinton down to 40.1. That proved to be her lowest point apart from a 40 reading on July 13.
The initial shock that there were such e-mails now made public caused an initial drop, even before they could be read and digested. If the e-mail contents had been devastating to her, we’d expect Clinton to have stayed down; but she did not. The e-mails didn’t produce a smoking gun or a mortal blow to her. In fact, the absence of really big bombshells may have helped her as the days ticked by and no really big negatives were found lurking in the e-mails. Clinton recovered and Trump fell back. By August 13, Trump was 41.6 and Clinton was 46.3.
Within a week or so after that, Clinton’s lead seeped away. The contest had become nip and tuck, very close. In September, Hillary’s health became an issue. An article in “The Hill” picked up on that factor right away. This is why we see Clinton falling to 41 on September 15 and 17.
Again, this blow was not fatal to Clinton. She slowly etched out a recovery, despite the Donna Brazile flap on October 11. That set Clinton back temporarily for about 6 days. She was hurt by the public knowledge that she had cheated during the debates with advance notice of some questions. However, another event with a negative impact on Clinton also occurred on about the same date. On October 12, a Russian leader suggested nuclear war if Clinton were elected. These two announcements proved to have only a minor and temporary impact. By October 22-24, Clinton had recovered and again led Trump by a small amount in this poll.
On October 28, FBI Director Comey startled the world with his announcement about the Abedin computer. Analysis of that announcement suggests that it helped Trump move out to a clear lead in the polling. Clinton has said that Comey’s announcement cost her the election, and the evidence we have in this poll suggests that her assessment on that score is accurate.
The evidence from this poll suggests that the setbacks to Clinton’s campaign from DNC e-mails being made public were both minor and temporary. The evidence shows that the race was close much of the time and that Clinton was able to recover quickly from any minor e-mail-related setbacks that did occur. Her health was a larger issue that caused a clear drop in her poll numbers in September, and it took a month for her to recover from that setback. Comey’s re-opening of her case in late October caused another large setback, from which she had no time to recover.
Comey undermined the election in terms of a fair democratic process. The Wikileaks e-mails did not. The e-mails actually produced information that clarified corruption in the process; and these revelations may help lead to a strengthening of the process in the future. Furthermore, the electorate had plenty of time to absorb the e-mails and to witness Clinton’s handling of them, time that it did not have after Comey’s announcement.
The Democrats who are so concerned about losing this election need to look at the persons who were most responsible for their loss and ‘fess up: They were not the Russians. Comey played a part, and he was an Obama appointee. Comey would never have been able to play a role if Clinton had taken care of her communications properly as Secretary of State. Donna Brazile, John Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Huma Abedin played a significant part, and they were all Clinton operatives. Clinton herself played a huge part. She lost this one, the big one.
The explanations for Clinton’s role and her responsibility in her loss are legion. The more of them there are, the less possible it becomes seriously to blame Russian hacking for her loss.
RussiaGate: Fire the CIA!