General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Democrats say they now know exactly why Clinton lost [View all]andym
(5,443 posts)They absolutely know who (by name) is registered in pretty much every district/precinct (public record) and who voted (by name and address), often what their party affiliation is (not always available), and they have this data historically and they know how the precinct/district voted now and in the past. That's how they can infer what happened to a large degree. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of statistics. For example, if they know a precinct has 5000 voters in 2016 and 2012 (for simplicity), and Obama won 3000 to 2000, but Trump also won 3000 to 2000 and there were only 100 voters who were new in 2016, and 100 who voted in 2012, but not in 2016, then even if you assume all 100 voter differences favored Trump, you can still state that at least 900 Obama voters must have shifted to Trump.
They can also assess quantitatively if voters were unethusiastic (did not vote) or suppressed (removed from the voter rolls).
The opinion comes in as to why it happened (Comey, misogyny, Russians vs desire for change, etc). So I take this analysis very seriously.