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Why Hillary Clinton’s Popular Vote Victory Is Misleading
Arthur M. Horwitz
Publisher / Executive Editor
ahorwitz@renmedia.us
A
F. Kevin Browett
Chief Operating Officer
kbrowett@renmedia.us
mid all the excitement (both
valuable; in this case, it is electoral votes.
ecstatic and anguished) sur-
Thus, Pennsylvania voters saw a great deal
rounding the election of Donald
of Trump, Clinton, Pence and Kaine this
Trump as president-elect of the United
year. This was rational behavior on the parts
States, we face the possibility that for the
of the candidates — Pennsylvania’s 20 elec-
second time in a generation, the winner of
toral votes were both critical and “in-play”
the popular vote may not win the
throughout the entire campaign.
electoral vote. With Hillary Clinton
Voters in other large battleground
ahead by more than 1 million votes
states like Ohio, North Carolina
as of this writing, Donald Trump, like
and Florida, as well as in smaller
George W. Bush in 2000, will become
battleground states like New
president while having won fewer
Hampshire and Nevada saw simi-
votes than his opponent.
lar treatment.
While Democrats are express-
On the other hand, voters in
ing regret about strategic aspects of
New York, Massachusetts, Texas,
Jeffrey L.
their stunning loss (Would Bernie
Alabama and other one-sided
Bernstein
Sanders have been the stronger
states received little attention.
candidate? Should Hillary have cam-
There is no strategic reason for the
paigned more in the Midwest?), they are also campaigns to have paid attention to them
understandably upset that, in their minds,
— New York’s and Massachusetts’s electoral
Secretary Clinton did not entirely lose this
votes were squarely in the Clinton column,
election. I argue, however, that claiming a
while Texas’ and Alabama’s were secure for
popular vote victory is misleading.
Trump.
Love it or hate it, the presence of the
If we accept the Electoral College as the
Electoral College represents the rules of the
pre-determined rules for the election (and
game for winning a presidential election.
the Constitution clearly says we must), the
The person who wins the presidential elec-
candidates behaved exactly as they should
tion is the person who wins enough states’
have in minimizing attention to these states.
electoral votes to get to 270 (assuming all
Now, imagine that the Electoral College
electors remain faithful to the choice of their did not exist and the election was deter-
state).
mined by a nationwide popular vote.
The rules for determining who wins a
Strategies would be radically different under
presidential election do not, in any way,
these rules. Instead of conceding California
shape or form, involve winning the national
to Clinton, Trump would have campaigned
popular vote. There is no constitutional crisis there. He would not have won the state, but
or ambiguity; Donald Trump won more elec- perhaps the presence of a strong Trump
toral votes and is, therefore, the legitimately
campaign (physically and on television) in
elected president.
the state might have increased his vote per-
Election rules matter since rules structure centage a small amount. Had Clinton done
the behavior of the players in any contest.
the same thing in Texas, her popular vote
Candidates, therefore, seek what is most
total likely would have increased as well.
New York and Texas would have been
fully in play for both candidates if the elec-
tion were to be determined by popular vote.
In fact, all states and all voters would have
been. Candidates would have run differ-
ent campaigns and sought different blocs
of voters had they needed a majority of the
popular vote.
Candidates would logically have spent
more time seeking an extra 100,000 votes
in California or Texas rather than the extra
10,000 they sought in New Hampshire or
Nevada.
Were the rules of the game to require a
plurality of popular votes, candidates would
have used a strategy aimed at maximizing
their number of popular votes. However,
when the rules of the game reward winning
states, candidates will seek the pivotal extra
votes in both large and small swing states in
order to win those states’ electoral votes.
Candidates know the rules of the game
when they begin. They use a strategy aimed
at winning according to these rules and for-
sake strategies aimed at winning according
to other rules.
To say, then, that the popular vote we saw
on Election Day represents the true choice
of the people is potentially incorrect; what
we saw was not necessarily the popular vote
we would have seen had candidates aimed to
win the popular vote.
So, while Hillary Clinton did technically
win the popular vote, the value of such a
claim is weakened when subjected to stricter
scrutiny.
*
Jeffrey L. Bernstein is a professor of political science
and affiliated faculty for the Center for Jewish Studies
at Eastern Michigan University.
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guest column continued from page 5
Hillary Clinton than were of Bernie
Sanders, for example.
The State of Israel had a string of
Labor-dominated governments in its
founding decades. It has, however,
elected right-wing governments with
nationalistic platforms in more recent
elections.
Jews in France, home to the world’s
third-largest Jewish community,
were, even in the recent past, sympa-
thetic to Socialist Party candidates.
However, a large proportion of the
Jews of France, it would appear, voted
for Sarkozy (presidential candidate
of the soft right Union for a Popular
Movement) both in 2007 and in 2012.
Current Jewish political opinion in
the three largest Jewish communities
(U.S., Israel and France), which, col-
lectively, constitute the overwhelm-
ing bulk of world Jewry, corroborate
6 November 24 • 2016
Bannon A Divisive Choice
the idea that the one-time ties
between Jews and the left can best
be explained by political, economic
and sociological conditions that came
into existence in the 19th century
and which went out of existence in
the 20th, rather than by reference to
Jewish religious ideas or Jewish racial
characteristics.
The relationship of Jews to the left
was a historically important phenom-
enon — not only in Great Britain,
but also in other Jewish communities
around the world. This relationship,
however, was of limited duration.
*
Jack Jacobs is Louis and Helen Padnos Visiting
Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of
Michigan – Ann Arbor and professor of political
science at John Jay College and the Graduate
Center at City University of New York.
U.S. Rep. Sander Levin (D-Roseville) released the
following statement after it was announced that
Steve Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart
News, a conservative website, will be the chief
strategist for President-Elect
Donald Trump’s White House:
“The appointment of Steve
Bannon as senior adviser and
chief strategist runs in direct
contradiction to President-
elect Trump’s statement, ‘I
will be the president of all
Americans.’
Sander Levin
“Bannon has a long and
troubled history of promoting
racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and
white nationalist propaganda. This is a deeply
disturbing appointment through which to launch
his presidential inner circle and simply continues
the divisive negativity of his campaign.”
*
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