Nate Silver Says ‘The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election’
Did FBI Director James Comey’s letter cost Hillary Clinton the election? Nate Silver says yes. In a lengthy piece on FiveThirtyEight Silver makes the case that “Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28.”
For a lot Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Nate Silver’s assertion seems obvious but it’s important to focus on the details, which is exactly what Silver did. It’s not enough to just say that the FBI Director cost Clinton the election, the matter is provable.
Silver makes the case by pointing to the narrowing of polls immediately following the Comey letter as well as the shift in news coverage that focused heavily on the reopening of the investigation.
However, Silver is careful to note that the Comey letter is not the only reason Clinton lost. “It does not excuse every decision the Clinton campaign made. Other factors may have played a larger role in her defeat, and it’s up to Democrats to examine those as they choose their strategy for 2018 and 2020,” Silver noted.
Here is one of the key sections from Silver’s piece:
But the effect of those factors — say, Clinton’s decision to give paid speeches to investment banks, or her messaging on pocket-book issues, or the role that her gender played in the campaign — is hard to measure. The impact of Comey’s letter is comparatively easy to quantify, by contrast. At a maximum, it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points toward Donald Trump, swinging Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida to him, perhaps along with North Carolina and Arizona. At a minimum, its impact might have been only a percentage point or so. Still, because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the Electoral College.
Silver is also very critical of the media saying “many mainstream journalists have been in denial about the impact of Comey’s letter.” Silver makes the case that the reason the media is in denial about the true impact of the Comey letter is because “the media may have some responsibility for the result.”
The media gave disproportionate attention to the story in the final days of the campaign and Silver strongly suggests that the media needs examine the way the approached the story. “More sober coverage of the story might have yielded a milder voter reaction,” Silver said.
You can read the full Nate Silver analysis here.
