Nate Silver: Clinton Would’ve ‘Almost Certainly’ Become President If Not for Comey’s Letter
As America continues to observe from the fallout the 2016 election, FiveThirtyEight statistician Nate Silver has concluded that Hillary Clinton‘s camp was right about at least one thing: they probably would’ve won the election if not for James Comey‘s fateful announcement.
Among other arguments over the last month, Clinton loyalists have stated that the FBI Director crippled her momentum by announcing that he was re-opening his agency’s investigation into her email scandal. While the new investigation turned up relatively no changes to the case, it is possible that it helped give Donald Trump an opening to surprise many of the pollsters and win the election.
While Silver gave Clinton an 80% chance of victory months out from the election, his projections grew steadily more competitive over time until they eventually suggested Trump would win. Now that the dust has settled, Silver is stating that the combination of Comey and WikiLeaks caused Clinton to bleed support in the voting sectors she would’ve needed most in order to win.
Comey had a large, measurable impact on the race. Harder to say with Russia/Wikileaks because it was drip-drip-drip. https://t.co/LgJkfYpZCk https://t.co/9FYMNz763b
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016
There’s more evidence, too: Late-deciding voters broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA. pic.twitter.com/8r801ahDQO
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016
I’ll put it like this: Clinton would almost certainly be President-elect if the election had been held on Oct. 27 (day before Comey letter).
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016
[Image via screengrab]
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