Three reasons why the Democrats' Blue Wall crumbled

[brooklynite]

Politico

There isn’t always a simple answer for why voters stay home or disengage. A number of factors can play a role, from one’s personal circumstances that make elections feel removed from their lives, to outside influences like Russia’s interference in 2016. Sometimes those things are beyond the control of political parties or candidates.

But after months of traveling and talking with voters, activists and canvassers, it’s clear that Democrats — who in 2016 projected confidence that historical and demographic voting trends would give then a huge advantage for the White House going forward — have their work cut out.

The party’s eventual nominee will obviously matter a lot: Does that person have a clear message; do they inspire hope and excitement across the party’s diverse voting blocs?

At the same time, shoe-leather politics — the hard work of engaging Democratic voters who might not be especially motivated to participate — will be key. That’s especially true in the Blue Wall states, which will almost certainly be decided by a very small number of people.

[evertonfc]

1. We lost

MI, WI and PA by a few thousand votes in a low turnout election. Trump provided the choice of an outsider. We crank up GOTV and we win.

[NewJeffCT]

4. low turnout?

Turnout was up in 2016 vs 2012 - 136.67 million votes cast for president in 2016 vs 129.09 votes cast in 2012, an increase of 8..5 million.

The problem was that registered voters increased from around 150 million in 2012 to around 2000 million in 2016, but the increase in turnout was only a fraction of the increase in registered voters. All that effort registering new voters who didn't vote.

[Amishman]

7. The high turnout was uneven, rural areas had well above average turnout

2016 was the revenge of nowhere.

[mcar]

12. And those votes went to Jill Stein

[aeromanKC]

2. Hillary by a landslide

caused people to stay home or throw their vote away on a protest vote or 3rd party. This didn't happen in 2018. When we stick together and GOTV we win. It is just that simple.

[octoberlib]

6. This! People thought Hillary was a shoo-in.

[uponit7771]

3. Right, ANOTHER article that wont admit the *EXTENT* of the Russian hacking, VSM and 3rd party

... candidates, backed by Russians, historically over performing in those 5 states.

There was little dems can do in the face of cheating like that

[TheBlackAdder]

5. I posed on the root cause of this and if I repost it, it will get pulled as relitigating 2016.

[Garrett78]

8. Any 1 of many factors could have been responsible, given we're talking 80k votes over 3 states.

25 years of Hillary hate

Comey's last minute announcement

A pitiful media that gave Clinton emails more attention than Trump's gazillion scandals

Overconfidence

Voter suppression

Foreign interference

The bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of Obama voters across key states simply didn't turn out. If we boost turnout of the base (particularly POC, youth and white suburban women), we can overcome shenanigans. If, instead, we futilely focus on winning over Trump supporters, we'll have 4 more years of Trump.

[edhopper]

10. this is the answer

And it is hard to say which was more important.

[Autumn]

9. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why voters stay home or disengage.

And it doesn't take one to figure out how to get them to vote either.

[Blue_true]

11. I just didn't see signs that Hillary's campaign took smaller cities in states

seriously. Our 2020 nominee needs to do the type of bus tours that Joe did, maybe twice during the race, for 8-10 days each time, hitting a lot of small cities and towns. The press is going to follow our nominee everywhere and every gathering will be national news.