Democrats say they now know exactly why Clinton lost
A select group of top Democratic Party strategists have used new data about last year’s presidential election to reach a startling conclusion about why Hillary Clinton lost. Now they just need to persuade the rest of the party they’re right.
Many Democrats have a shorthand explanation for Clinton’s defeat: Her base didn’t turn out, Donald Trump’s did and the difference was too much to overcome.
But new information shows that Clinton had a much bigger problem with voters who had supported President Barack Obama in 2012 but backed Trump four years later.
Those Obama-Trump voters, in fact, effectively accounted for more than two-thirds of the reason Clinton lost, according to Matt Canter, a senior vice president of the Democratic political firm Global Strategy Group. In his group’s analysis, about 70 percent of Clinton’s failure to reach Obama’s vote total in 2012 was because she lost these voters.
In recent months, Canter and other members of Global Strategy Group have delivered a detailed report of their findings to senators, congressmen, fellow operatives and think tank wonks – all part of an ongoing effort to educate party leaders about what the data says really happened in last year’s election.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article147475484.html
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That's.........a pretty large ideological leap. OTOH I heard people on this board talk about how his supposed stances on NAFTA, military intervention, etc. might be populist-sounding enough to bring in a few left-wing voters (whom probably voted for President Obama in 2008/2012), which might have actually happened. I know at least one former DU member (and previous Obama voter) whom voted for Trump because she seriously believed that Hillary was a warmonger and would take us to war with Russia.
to say "Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million votes." However, given that our spectacular showing in California accounted for virtually all of that margin, it leaves us vulnerable to the argument: "Without the Electoral College, a landslide in one state can veto the ("popular vote"
decision of the other 49."
We lost, we need to adjust.
but it is a FALSE assumption to say that the "message" was wrong when almost 3,000,000 more voters agreed with it. THAT is my issue. "Navigating" the electoral college is but a work-around tactic due to the system but then it also means you sometimes focus on the wrong things.
I know years ago many folks trashed the party for actually playing to the electoral system by attempting to "hold" something like 16 "blue states" and maybe pick up one or 2 purple ones along the way. Then the 50-state strategy came about with Dean to actually open up more paths and that expanded the map. But then it also caused other dynamics that were unpredictable and needed to be followed up on.
Now it seems that the argument is to move back to a different twist on the old strategy. 
Democrats haven't won the "white working class (male) vote" since Johnson. Even Jimmy Carter got less white vote than Ford - https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-1976/
And surprise surprise what happened after the 1964 vote? A little something called the Voting Rights Act AND the 24th Amendment, where a whole demographic was given protections to vote. And there began the white flight.
You have "the south" with states that have between 25% - 40% black population, yet those states are hardcore "red" (although some like GA are finally starting to soften). No one seems to want to address THAT issue.
This "TPP" bullshit that became endless fodder on DU is something that probably 90% of Americans have no idea of what the fuck it was. In 2010, you had Democrats running away from Obama regarding the ACA, where all of a sudden it's "popular" now. The ODS here on DU was just a magnification of the same sentiment nationwide. The election of a black man who had come out of a white woman's body was too much for the senses of millions in this racist fucking country and we are seeing the "white lash" effect of that.
And when you denigrate a state like California, that has embodied the heart and soul of the Democratic party platform across all of its planks, it makes one wonder what the real agenda is.
As Johnson famously noted -
And your dismissal of Hispanic votes is even MORE alarming.
You need to quit while you are struggling to be ahead. Your post is exactly why we keep saying that there is one faction out there who has trivialized everyone but white males.
And as a note, I was a Union VP for 2 years and President for 3 years for an AFGE Local way before I had become a Supervisor, so I very much know about "unions" (and I helped bargain a local agreement at that time). But I also know that many unions were very much anti-black and other POC and for decades, did their very best to keep POC out, so there is going to be some issues from that standpoint that need to be resolved.
There is a long game and that game is demographics. And the people you are chasing are going to slowly be extinct in the next couple decades and that fear of annihilation is coming to a head.
I understand how the electoral college works and people have posted over and over and over in thread after thread that the "flipped" states (like mine) were only "flipped" by less than 1% of the vote - e.g., here in PA, by about 70,000 votes, which were distributed across the state out of 6,000,000 votes.
You did dismiss as a "spike" in voting, a demographic that has been increasing faster than the one you chase and who are in other states outside of California like say... Texas? 
Yet you are apparently not attributing this increase of voters to platform ideas that are relevant to that demographic.
All of the arguments from the JPR crowd such as what you are professing, continue to dismiss voter suppression in areas where solid Democrats reside and attribute things to "messaging" that have nothing to do with "messaging" and everything to do with white privilege and a last gasp from people who have been brainwashed to believe that their "problem" is "immigrants and minorities who have taken their jobs". They look around their all-white communities now running rampant with opioid addiction yet see on teevee that POC "grifters" are at fault and are the drug-dealers and criminals, because that is how they have been programmed to think.
I have been posting ad nauseum that the Democratic wealthy need to get up off their $$$ and BUY AM radio stations (when they become available) located in those rural areas that have no cell or TV access so that we can get them programmed with our message... the one that they don't "hear" because they "hear" nothing but RW bullshit on their radios.
I'm actually a baby boomer - tail end of that generation. But why should our success be a 'one-off?'
I'm also an economist, so I can tell you a couple things based on your reply. And, yes, I'm quite aware I'm an idealist. You bet. I've been called a unicorn and lots of other not-so-nice stuff, but I keep plugging. Because you know, every little bit makes some difference.
So, to your statements: for sure single payer won't be perfect. Anything run by humans won't be. But if you look at the Brits, their NHS is structured around regional General Practitioners who control access to the system. So, that's a problem. Most of the wealthy people I know who have lived in UK hate this system because of that. But here's the thing - Brits don't die because they can't afford health care or lifesaving drugs. Oh, I'm sure Joe the Plumber might come up with one or two cases where they did, but those are aberrations in the system, not the norm.
I'm glad your parents have Medicare. $900/mo is cool. I work my ass off, and I pay over $14K per year for shitty, rationed healthcare with financially crippling copays. And it's an HMO so I do not get to choose my doctor. So, yeah, I don't like that much at all. And, if you've ever owned a business, which I have, healthcare is the biggest expense short of the labor itself. It is a huge line item. If all of a sudden we went to single payer, businesses across the USA would immediately have much lower operating costs. The only people who would be affected are the 400,000 people working in the health insurance industry now. And, possibly big pharma. To put this in perspective, the US labor force is just over 200 million people. And we have training programs that can help these people retool and get back to work in a different industry.
As to the free college - I pay tens of thousands in taxes every year - I'm middle class, middle earner. Why, I ask, does this money I pay in have to be routed to 'defense' contracts, or the NSA, when instead it could be used to make my life better? Government is a service, and it costs money to live in a society like this. Not only that, but corporations have this loophole in the tax code that allows them to 'offshore' profits without paying taxes on them. Result? The nominal tax rate all the Repubs say is 'the highest in the world' is, but that isn't the effective tax rate, which is the actual amount paid after deductions. So far, big companies like GE have salted away over $2 trillion offshore that is untaxed. In fact, during a couple years of the last decade, they paid no US income tax on billions in profits. How is that fair?
And, one last question, and it is rhetorical - not aimed at you, just throwing it out there: If the national debt is money we owe ourselves for service we have given ourselves, then why are we paying it back to bankers with interest? The Fed is NOT quasi governmental like they tell you. The companies that have the biggest position in it now are the same ones who had the biggest position back in 1912 - Citibank and JP Morgan Chase.
We always talk scarcity, like there just isn't enough for you and me. But you know what? There's plenty of wealth in the world. It's just concentrated in too few hands.
If you want an interesting read, I recommend Ellen Brown's 'Web of Debt' and check out public banking systems. We'd be SO much better off if we got rid of the Fed and printed our own money. But if you read Brown, you'll find out what the shyster bankers did to Abraham Lincoln in retaliation for him going with government issued greenbacks. (hint, the Secret Service was formed in 1865 not to protect the Prez, but to battle the counterfeiters - over a third of the greenbacks in circulation that year were counterfeit, courtesy of European and American bankers who didn't like getting left out of that loop.
Capitalism sucks, doesn't it?
Anyway, nice talking to you! 
Hillary Clinton would have won.
I think it was something like 70,000 voters in Michigan who were affected by broken voting machines in mostly black districts. An unknown number of voters whose registration was challenged who may not have been able to vote across the country. Unknown numbers of voters who were not able to vote because of strict voter ID laws and inability to get qualifying identifications.
Oh - back to Michigan which has the insane law that if voting machines are broken no recount or audit is allowed.
Those factors alone probably would have pushed the election more to the Democratic side.
We need to register people to vote but we also need to make sure that once registered they have access to voting. We can help people get the IDs that are required in so many states - including helping them to pay for the documentation required to get those IDs and to pay for the IDs themselves (Florida for instance charges $25 for a state photo ID - on top of the amount required to get a certified birth certificate, and for women the cost to get marriage/divorce/death certificates if they changed their names when married).
In addition, we need to advertise this stuff - how voting machines are not secure, what IDs are required to vote, and how to get their IDs. We also need to push for changing the laws so our voting is verifiable and so real in depth audits are possible and will be done for every election. We also need to bring back the provisions of the Voting Act that protected voters from the abuse they have gotten since parts were overturned.
and Sanders going after Obama and now other top Dems are agreeing with the narrative that they ran a horrible campaign despite what we know about Comey/Putin.
Circular firing squad here we come. Woohoo! 
Younger voters grew up hearing that crap, it became ingrained. 
Obama voters that voted for trump did so because they refused to vote for Hillary. A tragedy. And that's all I'm ever going to say about it here.
It has always seemed backwards, so many outside the party have no idea what we really stand for and the competition fills that void with hate. How unfair to our candidates that they must fight to explain who we are, defend who we are, before even getting to their own hopes and ideas. We could teach it, in their face, one word at a time, one State at a time, now.
And if it was stolen again, our party would still be the stronger for it. oh well, what do i know.
also factor in things like voter suppression, 30+ years of relentless smears, hate bots (all one had to do was to type "Hillary Clinton's name into Google for some of the most nasty, vile smears and lies ever), a media that collaborated with her enemies, an FBI director who collaborated with her enemies, the Russians, and a LOT of hanky-panky in red areas? It's not just data - it's also the daily smears and relentless erosion.
According to most sources, Hillary received roughly as many votes in 2016 as Prez O did in 2012, just not in some of the same states. Here's one example: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-election-final-20161209-story.html
In addition to the above, I frankly blame at least some of this loss on those who are proud to call themselves "progressive" rather than "liberal," because they consider themselves so much purer than "liberals." Right now, I am very wary of anyone who tells me that they are "progressive" rather than "liberal" because what I have seen from too many such people is the kind of rigid authoritarianism that is characteristic of the right.
I will be a "liberal" to my dying day - and VERY proud to be. Most of my stands are exactly what self-styled "progressives" say they believe. But that particular descriptor has lost all its attraction for me after 2016. 
that doesn't make any sense.
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with many "Democrats" claiming they don't exist. The claim is being made in this thread. They DO exist and I've been saying so since the election. I'm from PA and it makes me ill that my home state went to Trump, but I understand the ECONOMIC reasons as to why it did.
You're right -- we can't win by relying on "the base." And no one on this board will answer how we get win back the electoral votes of PA, MI, and WI (former Democratic strongholds). Dems keep winning big on the coasts? Big deal. Winning the popular vote doesn't put someone in the White House.
