> With last night's victories for Clinton and Trump, the real question people should be asking themselves is what these two candidates have in common that have kept them winning, despite their having the two worst favorability ratings in the election?

Specious assumption. My conclusion is that the favorability ratings are bullshit.

To posit that a huge media conspiracy has caused millions of voters to vote huge, huge landslides in favor of these two people is just ridiculous compared with the probability that measuring very complex and ineffable metrics like "favorability" is a total crapshoot, especially in a world where voters like myself (and many HNers, I suspect) do not have landlines, use ad-blockers, do not click on advertising online and do not fill out surveys.

Tl;dr the likelihood of media influence controlling this election to such huge, huge landslide outcomes is overwhelmingly improbable compared to the high likelihood that favorability metrics are junk-science.