2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNegative painting works
Ask Mike Dukakis and his "running mate" Willie Horton, Al Gore "the inventor of the internet", or "swiftboated" John Kerry. Each was unfairly painted by the opposition. But Hillary Clinton faced far worse, because she actually faced the power of political witch hunting in Congress.
One lesson to never forget is that negative painting works very well indeed. Hillary Clinton's trust rating were destroyed by the GOP investigations and then by Comey and FBI investigations. Take a look at the graphic by mid 2015 she was in deep trouble.
(this graphic is from July)
Her trust rating was even lower (about 36%) when Comey struck two weeks before the election. The only reason she was leading the polls, was because Trump, a historically awful candidate, had an even lower trust rating. But then there was very little that could be done about Comey, he threw the election to Trump.
ps---I personally know of people who usually vote Democratic, who left their ballot blank for President and who could not be convinced to vote for Clinton. Very sad.

flamingdem
(40,064 posts)into the country without vetting.
The deplorables and many less than deplorable were HAMMERED day and night with false information.
TrekLuver
(2,573 posts)she's a "liar". I said Trashpot lies 5x as much, often in the same sentence. That never seemed to matter -- all his lies. I really think we would of still squeaked out a win but that last nail of the Comey letter was it. ...plus all the talk of investigations and committees and blocking everything...I'm sure that didn't help either. Even with all that we still almost one and we won the pop vote which does count for something in my eyes. I know one thing...DEMOCRATS NEED TO STICK TOGETHER! These disgusting Repub's even stuck together over a guy like Trump.
flamingdem
(40,064 posts)And I agree it was mostly the Comey letter that added to the concerns of the brainwashed and changed votes.
andym
(5,806 posts)which shows that at least a plurality of voters didn't buy in to the negative painting, which provides at least a ray of hope for the future.