Over 100 million eligible voters sat out the election...

[cynatnite]

Then there are thousands of others who were either purged our not permitted to vote altogether.

That's where I put the blame for the most part. Comey's partisanship played a big role as well.

I'm still flabbergasted on how the polls could be so wrong.

[LisaM]

1. The polls were always tight.

I don't think they were "so wrong". I think we got distracted by all the - 98% chance of winning, 75% chance of winning bullpuckey. I don't think that was useful at all. The polls were tight and when 538 showed a tightening race, a lot of people scoffed.

But it boils down to turnout. The difference in numbers between 2008 and now is stark. The GOP did not gain any meaningful number, they might even have been down. But there are about 8,000,000 vanished votes between the number of people who voted Democratic for President in 2008 and in 2016.

It's simple to blame it on Hillary Clinton, but the fact is that there was a dropoff as immediately as November 2008, when Saxby Chambliss and Max Cleland had a runoff election. If the number of people who'd voted for Obama in Georgia that year had turned out for the special election, it would have helped Obama.

The same group didn't bother to return to the polls to give him the majority he needed at the mid-terms, and even though he was re-elected in 2012, the margins were much tighter - just a 2% point difference.

I disagree vehemently that we need to clean house. We need to find those 8,000,000 voters and bring some of them back.

[cynatnite]

2. kick. n/t

[Coyotl]

3. Same as always.