Now that it is the morning after the election, many of us are in shock. Those of us who fully supported the Democratic candidate were expecting to spend the day celebrating the first woman President in American history.
The media is trying to figure out how their predictions could have been so far off base, given that nearly all of them had been predicting a Clinton victory. CNN had told us that the Democratic candidate would be going into the night with a nearly guaranteed 268 electoral votes.
In fact, they had told us on Monday that Secretary Clinton’s chances of winning the election had risen from 78 percent to 91 percent.
Many of us blamed the media, but the media was blaming the pollsters. Most of the polls looking at the key states had predicted a Clinton victory.
So what the heck happened?
Morning-after analysis is looking at the phenomenon called the “hidden Trump voter.” The fact is, according to Arie Kapteyn, director of the University of Southern California’s (USC) Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, that some people who intended to vote for Donald Trump were too embarrassed to admit it. When contacted by pollsters, those people either claimed to be unsure or said that they were voting for another candidate.
Kapteyn said:
“There’s some suggestion that Clinton supporters are more likely to say they’re a Clinton supporter than Trump supporters are to say they’re a Trump supporter.”
Why would a voter hesitate to admit that they support a candidate? Given the ugly rhetoric that characterized this election, and the fear that was inflamed by the Republican candidate, we have two possible explanations.
A YouTube video made a comedian who called himself “An Invisible Trump Support” got 100,000 views in 48 hours after it was posted.
#TrumpWinsBecause The silent majority is back and the choice has never been clearer https://t.co/VjKyFi6iax #MAGA
— lass (@massilassi) November 7, 2016
In the video, the voter claims that he has been intimidated by the left into hiding his choice for President. He says:
“Let’s shatter the culture of shame. Let’s shatter the culture of fear. I don’t need to hide anymore. Even if you want to get me fired, you don’t know where I go to when I hit the voting booth. You don’t know how I act behind that closed gate. You may have controlled the culture. You may be an effective fascist who can make people scared, but you’re about to see a landslide as guys like me hit the polls.”
Wow. Fascists scaring off Trump voters…
Maybe it isn’t so much fear, though, that really kept those Trump supporters silent. Maybe it was an awareness that they should actually feel shame for supporting a man who is so blatantly racist and sexist.
BuzzFeed News called some women who silently back Trump “Ivanka voters.”
https://twitter.com/annehelen/status/793845222870425600
There are other possible explanations for the failure of the polls. There are questions about the best way to assess who will actually turn out to vote, no matter who they say they are supporting. There is the ongoing debate about whether landline based polls accurately reach younger voters.
No matter.
What is striking about the failure of the pollsters to predict last night’s events is the fact that there was a significant group of Trump voters who didn’t feel comfortable expressing their view in public.
That is a very powerful statement on its own.
Here is the invisible Trump voter.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab.
