Why Did Voters Choose a Controversial Novice? Testing Clinton's Post-Election Analysis

American Politics @POP 1 Stata file 3 datasets Dataverse

Why Trump Won

The 2016 election saw an unprecedented victory: Donald Trump, an experienced novice with no political science background, defeated Hillary Clinton.

Our Approach

We analyze this through the lens of Clinton's perspective—specifically her claims in What Happened. We test a novel hypothesis about post-election narratives.

Our findings:

Most of Clinton's assumptions about losing are supported by evidence
The email controversy narrative (especially Comey's intervention) lacks strong substantiation

Key Implications

This research offers insights into political campaigns and the dynamics behind electoral defeats. It highlights a gap in political science literature regarding how defeated candidates interpret their loss.

Article card for article: The Hillary Hypotheses: Testing Candidate Views of Loss

The Hillary Hypotheses: Testing Candidate Views of Loss was authored by Stephen Quinlan and Michael Lewis-Beck. It was published by Cambridge in POP in 2019.