Clinton’s data-driven campaign relied heavily on an algorithm named Ada
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Meanwhile, Trump was doing 3 rallies a day, across multiple states, and up to 5 a day (including until after midnight) in the days leading up to the election, drawing crowds in excess of ten thousand people.
Where was Clinton during all of this? Almost nowhere to be seen. It seems to me that Ada made some pretty terrible choices.
And maybe having her hold more rallies would have worked against her in that case (people not being drawn to her) because there would have been the an increasing emphasis made on the comparative sizes of crowds (which was already happening to some degree).
That puts them in between a rock and hard place strategically - hold more rallies and get lambasted for having smaller crowds, don't hold the rallies and get lambasted for not having the stamina and not being accessible to the people.
In these cases, one wonders if a human in charge of strategy might have made better choices. After all, it was only just recently that a computer was able to outmatch a human in Go (heavily based on strategy) and I'm not convinced that an election involves less strategy and that you can rely on an algorithm to beat a talented human opponent.
And say what you will about Trump, but his strategy this entire election campaign has paid off incredibly for him and he did what most people considered to be the impossible.
He could well have been elected despite his strategy, not because of it.
Which stage was this? I mean sure there were plenty in the media quoting unnamed sources stating that Trump was going to quit any day now - for almost the entire duration of his campaign, in fact.
There were also plenty of times when he went against conventional political wisdom and came out on top. I don't think that was him trying to throw the campaign, I think it's just a fact that he's not a politician and so he does things differently.
Trump was always very clear that he was serious and that he planned to become president.
2. The system selected Pennsylvania as an important target.
3. They expended lots of effort there -- and still lost it.
I don't see how it is the computer's fault. Even if the system predicted the results exactly, you still need to do something about it.
Trump ran as the face of rural voters - every attack Clinton made became an attack on people who agreed with him. Perhaps not agreeing with every single outrage, but general statements such as "he's just a racist" were something that the rural voter had heard over and over again as a way to dismiss them. Trump turned the attacks into a provocation of his base.
It was all about race and gender. Well guess what? Most people didn't vote based on gender and race issues. They voted on economy and corruption (which is related to the economy one) issues.
Meanwhile, Clinton's entire campaign was about how much of a bigot Trump was, while half of the country earns less than $30,000 a year.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/25/1-in-2-working-americans-m...
Who campaigned for this half of America? Well, it wasn't Clinton. She campaigned on "4 more years of Obama" and "not rocking the boat or changing much." Those would be pipe dreams, after all.
Only Trump and Sanders did, and Sanders they cheated out of the election in a multitude of ways, including by spreading the Democratic establishment propaganda that Clinton was the "more electable" one because she was "battle tested" (she didn't do so well in the last battle, though). But she couldn't cheat Trump out of the election, so he won.
The worst thing about this is that the Democratic establishment don't even want to accept the blame for the complete and utter loss of all branches of the government. They want to coronate Tim Kaine at the next election - the guy that nobody knows anything about, except that for some reason Clinton picked him, and also part of the same team that has just lost. Great strategy. I can already see all the people that didn't go vote for Clinton not come to vote for Kaine in even greater numbers!
1. Her policies were less vivid and memorable. Her tax policy versus Trump's belligerence at trade partners Mexico and China where the factory work moved.
2. Her credibility regarding her ability to actually bring about change. I think Bill Clinton tried to address this in his speeches, but she is part of the establishment and therefore expected to continue the status quo.
This is apart from her health, which I think affected her ability to fight the media war, and being a woman, which makes her an icon for social issues whether or not she wants to be -- those maybe a factor but they are outside her control.
Apparently it wasn't the choice of PA as an "important" target, but overfit of its importance to that of other key states (e.g. in the rust belt) which may have been at fault. Like the article says:
But it appears that the importance of other states Clinton would lose — including Michigan and Wisconsin — never became fully apparent or that it was too late once it did.
I'm pretty sure the data collection was not well handled.
Why would we think that the hubris, as exposed in the Wikileaks emails, would not also infect this "secret" project.
I also wonder if everyone involved was able to speak truth to power--Or if the ones with dissenting opinions or countering data were simply ignored? Seems plausible.
The way I view it the Clinton camp knew they were in serious trouble and reacted accordingly.
Do you have a source for the internal poll collapse 1.5 weeks before the election?
Edit: My hypothesis is the likely voter estimates were pure fiction.
http://www.moremonmouthmusings.net/2016/11/10/trumps-interna...
There's been a ton of finger pointing today as to where the blame falls for Clinton losing (Facebook...). The reality isn't hard to understand, Bernie was treated unfairly by team Clinton and Trump's supporters were discounted, vilified and talked down to. It's pretty easy to see where the real fault lies and it's not with any form of technology.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCA_%28computer_system%29
In particularly heated elections, right-leaning voters begin to lie to pollsters about their voting intentions. They are embarrassed, or afraid, or skeptical about the pollster's intentions and honesty. So they lie. This creates a misleading impression of the actual position of the candidates.
Typically, exit polls show a much more realistic picture of the vote. It's just that they're too late to operate on.
The next generation of algorithms will need to introduce allowances for the shy tories in the US, relative to the degree to which one side feels unwilling to be honest with pollsters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/upshot/exit-polls-why-they...
I very much doubt this hypothesis, as it requires a large, expensive and perfectly-secret conspiracy.
And for the journalists working in the next room to not want to win a Pulitzer for exposing it.
Has there ever been a case of a journalist winning a pulitzer for uncovering corruption within their own newsroom? I thought there was a de facto ban on that. (E.g. I don't think the NYT won a pulitzer for reporting that they had previously censored all news about Bush's spying infrastructure to help him get re-elected.)
Also ordered by Clinton from a mail-order catalogue, I assume.
edit: "The study found only a slight impact by moving poll respondents from the internet to a phone call with a live interviewer — with larger effects among college-educated white voters."[1][2]
So while I think it's likely there was a shy tory effect, the evidence suggests it was small enough that there must have been other factors at play.
[1] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/polling-election-what-...
[2] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/poll-shy-voters-trump-...
The same pattern is observed in other countries regardless of polling method or polling company.
So unless Clinton has been rigging polls world-wide for decades in anticipation of her 2016 run, it seems more plausible that people don't trust pollsters.
You are in the right direction, but I think it's a bit not like that and not about lying, being afraid and being skeptical about pollster's intention.
If people feel shame for their choice, they would try to avoid expressing it anywhere, participating in polls, etc., especially in front of their peers. In regions where most have opposing views and shame for choosing the other candidate, they will feel pressure to keep their choice to themselves and they won't in the regions where most support the same candidate. Being afraid of something is a completely different thing and generally prevents voters to even vote, not just avoid polls.
In the end, it doesn't necessarily matter why it happens.
What matters is that it happens.
Garbage in, Garbage out.
Though, a large part of the problem was assuming Clinton's turnout would look like Obama's 2012 turnout.