Did Hillary Clinton severely blunder in losing MI, WI, and PA?

[NoTrump]

Did Hillary Clinton severely blunder in losing MI, WI, and PA?

After all, in spite of the fact that both of them lost in their respective presidential elections, Al Gore and John Kerry both managed to win all three of these states. In contrast, Hillary Clinton lost all three of these states even though she actually won the national popular vote by 2.1% (in contrast to Al Gore's 0.5% victory margin in the national popular vote in 2000 and John Kerry's 2.5% loss in the national popular vote in 2004).

Thus, would you agree with me that Hillary Clinton's loss in MI, WI, and PA wasn't a mere failure, but rather an EPIC failure?

[twenty42]

PA was a stone-cold purple swing state in 2016 despite the media's delusions. Clinton only led the state by 1.9 points despite a 3.3-point national lead, which was a huge smoke signal that everybody decided to ignore. So I wouldn't call PA an epic fail...it was more like a coin toss resulting in heads.

MI and WI are a bit murkier. Clinton was leading by comfortable margins in those states, but she was also only garnering around 47% in each. Those percentages were pretty predictive of her final results, but she lost the states due to a huge portion of undecideds breaking for Trump.

All in all, I credit Trump for than I blame Clinton for the results in these three states. Whatever your personal opinions of him are, he simply ran a vastly superior campaign to hers. He went for touchdowns while she was kicking field goals, and it paid off.

[TML]

I do agree that Hillary made a big mistake in neglecting these states - by doing little or no campaigning in WI and MI and not focusing on working class voters in PA enough. Although most of the polls showed her with leads in these three states, this election had a greater share of undecided voters in the final days of the election than most recent elections (In fact, according to FiveThirtyEight's estimates, the share of undecided voters on Election Day 2016 exceeded 10%, which was the first time that has happened since 1996). Thus, her leads in the polls were in fact vulnerable to being wiped out by late-breaking voters, especially since the polls indicated that her vote share was less than 50%. Looking back, I think the correct strategy in these states would have been to campaign there to try to get her own vote share in the polls to ~50% or better (which would have been virtually safe from late-breaking voters for her opponent).

[Da2017]

Did Hillary Clinton severely blunder in losing MI, WI, and PA?

After all, in spite of the fact that both of them lost in their respective presidential elections, Al Gore and John Kerry both managed to win all three of these states. In contrast, Hillary Clinton lost all three of these states even though she actually won the national popular vote by 2.1% (in contrast to Al Gore's 0.5% victory margin in the national popular vote in 2000 and John Kerry's 2.5% loss in the national popular vote in 2004).

Thus, would you agree with me that Hillary Clinton's loss in MI, WI, and PA wasn't a mere failure, but rather an EPIC failure?

The fact that she lost to trump of all people makes it more epic.  Those were the states that decided the election. States that have voted democratic in the last 30 years.

[MARGINS6729]

Yes and no. Clinton did not completely neglect them, that is in thinking they were solid blue states that she didn't need to campaign in. She knew that they were competitive and campaigned in them. But in regards to Michigan and Wisconsin, she and her team neglected how competitive they actually were. Her team ignored complaints/concerns from people on the ground in Michigan since before the primary there and probably did the same in Wisconsin for the general election in which she never visited after the primary despite Bernie blowing her out of the water there.


Pennsylvania is trickier to say. Her team thought it was the most vulnerable of the three and invested in it accordingly, not to mention the Democrats knew the state could flip to the GOP  since they scheduled their convention there. But her team failed to predict just how badly she was going to be crushed in places like Westmoreland County and central Pennsylvania, thinking that the Philly suburbs would carry her through even though her team projected a loss in support amongst blue collar workers amongst the electorate. But contrary to common beliefs, the Democrats were able to win Pennsylvania in presidential races not just because of the Philadelphia area and it's suburbs but in winning Lackawanna, Erie, and Luzerne among others while not getting killed in the rest of the state. She thought that Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery along with Philadelphia and Allegheny counties would be enough but turnout there was not as high as they projected so she lost.

For me, I would have dumped Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina( the latter after black turnout/early voting turnout was low) in favor of defending Michigan and Wisconsin and devoted more resources to purple/red areas in Pennsylvania. I'm not going to say she was wrong in devoting resources to Arizona though as  her campaigning there planted the seeds for what the Democrats have accomplished there since  and are trying to do now. She didn't really do very much in Georgia or Texas contrary to what some would tell you(some people in Georgia actually complained at the time). So yes, she screwed up in Michigan and Wisconsin by not devoting enough resources to them and probably could have done more in Pennsylvania but you can also understand why her team thought it did the best they could there.

[Fuzzy Bear]

An awful human being and an awful candidate blew three states Republicans last won in 1988.  (Even worse, Wisconsin was last won by the GOP in 1984.)

Hillary Clinton severely blundered.  But when you look at her career when, really, was she right and others wrong?  When was she the one with the special insight?  When was she the one that was "ahead of the curve"?

[Badger]

The fact her campaign spent money and time in places like New Orleans and Texas while largely ignoring those big three states until it was too late, and that's costing her the election, was a massive tactical blunder. Hillary's campaign staff committed wholesale electoral malpractice.