Democrats fall in love with their candidate while Republicans fall in line. That means that dislike does not have the same impact for Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are much more likely to do their duty and vote brand-loyal, which they did at the last minute in this presidential race. Democrats falling in love with their candidate means high enthusiasm, deep support and people power. Enthusiasm means that late election shenanigans can be shaken off.
Hillary had an enthusiasm problem. When I was at the Democratic Fair Booth in Minnesota in 2015, the Bernie table had 3 people working the table with10 people waiting in line while the Hillary table had just one person working the table with no lines. We should have had another clue that something was wrong when Hillary struck 55% unfavorability in polls before the Democratic Party endorsement. Without enthusiasm and likability, those who vote on the Democratic side stay home and don’t vote.
Decisions by the Hillary campaign made this worse. Early on, there should have been great stories about Hillary that made people want to vote for her. Where are the viral shared videos like those shared about Elizabeth Warren? The only viral Hillary message that I saw was about Trump tweeting. There was no visionary message that people wanted to hold close to the heart. The Hillary campaign missed that people care about vision before resume.
Discomfort came from Hillary’s speaking style. Someone else should have coached Hillary on speaking. Yes pitching the voice in a lower key is a good idea. However all of the resonance and tonal quality should still be there. Talking in a lower register is like a singing a song in a lower key. Hillary sounded like a robot voice.
In previous elections, Hillary had an expressive face, so it was easy to tell when she was lying. She would shake her head in opposition to her message. Well that was noticed and stopped - but at a cost. In this election she had a frozen face. A frozen face tends to make people dislike and distrust the speaker.
Then there was lack of vision. I never felt there was anything that Hillary said that I could count on. Yes, Hillary will face a tough congress but where is Hillary’s target at? I want to hear where my candidate’s heart and soul was. Even when Hillary did try to make a vision statement, it came off as flat, wooden and insincere. Hillary statements were so carefully controlled that she sounded like a robot.
In fact the robot theme came out in people calling Hillary supporters, “Hillbots”. That was just another clue that the Hillary campaign was really not branding Hillary well.
All of those early ads could have had a likable Hillary. Bill Clinton told the best likable Hillary stories at the convention. Why couldn’t those stories have been ads? Where is the Hillary pumped up and mad for issues ads?
The Hillary campaign seem focussed on making Trump more disliked instead of selling its own candidate.
The “deplorables” statement was very good for the Trump side. It riled them up. While on the Democratic side, it did nothing. We all wondered why Hillary, the diplomat, would do that?
The word choices in general made me wonder. I asked what is wrong with the word “sexist”, why are you using the word “misogymy”. I was told that it sounded more elitist. In the Obama campaign, Obama who was a professor still sounded like a plain speaking man. Yet the Hillary campaign seemed to embrace elitism. It was not a winning strategy.
The Obama campaign downplayed blackness while the Hillary campaign played up femaleness. It did not make me feel good about voting for her. 51% of the world is female, surely we can find a better female?
I wanted to hear why Hillary was going to be a great leader. Experience was a poor reason. Female was a poor reason. Detailed plans on a website was a poor reason. I wanted to know what Hillary’s vision was for America. I wanted a “I have a dream” speech.
Why did the Hillary campaign paint itself as establishment? They could have said that Hillary was going to go farther and do better than Obama - on jobs, on better salaries, on providing affordable healthcare for everyone, on climate change, on ensuring that we did not have “banks too big to fail”. etc.
The Hillary campaign did not learn from the Bernie campaign. It was not that Bernie was a great speaker, it was that Bernie had a message and vision that resonated.
The last critical factor was that there was too much faith in the wrong parts of polling. Polling assumes that races act like previous races. This was a “lessor of two evils” race that was different from previous races. In negative races, more Democratic votes are lost. Voter suppression was changing voter accessibility. There were clues in the large number of late undecideds. The real question was who was going to actually vote. The false Hillary polling lead probably also depressed Hillary voting further.
Yes there were other problems, but Hillary should have had a 10% lead bolstered by people who were enthusiastically persuading for her. Hillary support was very thin in depth. There was no buffer of likability, enthusiasm and vision. So events in the last weeks in the campaign were able to do much more damage than should have been possible. Democratic voters stayed home. Republicans fell in line at the last minute and voted brand loyal.