NARROW MARGINS: Clinton keeps winning the popular vote!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2016

Part 1—Also, those narrow margins: Whenever Jamison Foser speaks, the analysts sit up and listen.

Two days ago, Foser tweeted. He made a suggestions to pollsters:

"If anyone is polling in the next few weeks I suggest asking 'Who won the popular vote for president?' The results will terrify you."

Thus tweeted Foser. Later, he noted that one polling outfit, YouGov, had already polled this question.

How many people know that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote? YouGov polled that question in a survey conducted from November 12 through November 15. Click here, see questions 19 and 20.

According to the YouGov survey, 52 percent of respondents said Clinton won the popular vote. According to YouGov, 39 percent of respondents mistakenly said that Trump did.

How accurate was that YouGov survey? We can't tell you that. YouGov's presentation strikes us as confusing. Also, its numbers don't seem to make sense in certain basic ways.

Most disturbingly, we can't even blame the whole thing on The Others. According to YouGov, 29 percent of Democrats said Trump received more votes. So did 38 percent of both black and Hispanic respondents—and blacks and Hispanics are commonly known to be Us!

Presumably, someone else will survey this question. Meanwhile, we've been struck by the lack of reporting about the popular vote.

For the second time in the last five elections, the Democratic standard-bearer is going to be "the biggest loser" despite having won the popular vote. That strikes us as an important occurrence.

Inevitably, it's receiving little press coverage. Let's offer some info here:

By now much did Candidate Clinton win the popular vote?

Even now, no one can say. Votes are still being counted, especially, it seems, in California.

Heaven help us if we ever have an election that turns on a narrow Golden State race. The public will have to twiddle its thumbs for weeks while the surfers and the slackers adjust for the three-hour time difference.

How far ahead is Clinton right now in the popular vote?

We've been following the count through a site at the Washington Post. As we type, this is the state of the popular vote, as reported at that site:

Current state of the popular vote:
Clinton: 62.39 million votes (48.0%)
Trump: 61.13 million votes (47.0%)

As such, Trump's mandate currently stands at minus 1.3 million votes. That "victory margin" is expected to grow, although you can't learn much about this matter from our major news orgs.

The nation's savants have said that Clinton will end up winning by two million votes. We don't know if that prediction is accurate, especially since all their prior assesstimates turned out to be wrong.

That said, our big news orgs have shown little interest in reporting this matter. In part for that reason, a substantial chunk of the public seems to be misinformed. But then, what else is new?

How did Clinton lose the electoral college despite winning the popular vote?

You're asking a good question! In our view, there are several important parts of this horror movie. Between now and Thanksgiving, we plan to review several basic plot points.

For starters, we'll be recording the number of "wasted votes." Principally, this will mean reviewing a lot of votes in California and New York.

We'll also be looking at "narrow margins"—at the slender numbers of popular votes which gave Candidate Trump his wins in several decisive states.

Right up to the bitter end, the nation's geniuses, seers and savants were saying that Trump couldn't win those states. Despite the praise we heap on ourselves for our manifest tribal brilliance, our capacity for cluelessness seems to know few bounds.

As we review those narrow margins, we'll consider one more point. We'll ask you to think about a phenomenon we'll call "needless offense."

Our tribe is never more fulfilled than when we're insulting The Others. In a bit of payback, The Others teabagged us good last week. In the days before Thanksgiving, we'll consider the way our favorite pastime may have flipped this race.

Given the way our system works, there's a large number of "wasted votes" in the data at the Post's site. There are also several painfully narrow victory margins.

Last night, Rachel was giving needless offense again. Arguably, it's the one skill our corporate stars have numbnuttedly mastered.

(Good God! Also this? The Bentley "sex tape" again? Did we actually see and hear that? "The Nun" was busy last night!)

Presumably, the giving of needless offense just keeps bringing us back for more. "Watch this space," our own TV star never fails to remind Us.

Monday: Large numbers of "wasted votes"