Hillary Clinton and her campaign advisors are analyzing what went wrong in their run for the White House. An initial glance at the statistics shows she received less support from key demographics like African-Americans, women and millennials than President Obama enjoyed in his re-election.
Clinton's inability to relate to the American electorate was also obvious in the polling. Investors Business Daily, one of few pollsters to accurately predict Tuesday's outcome, concluded that Clinton just did not have the voter enthusiasm her opponent had.
Clinton's dismissing half of Trump's supporters as "deplorable" certainly didn't help. She admitted as much privately this week, reports The New York Times.
But towards the end of the campaign, Clinton realized she had a problem on her hands. “The situation was made worse in September, when Mrs. Clinton described half of Trump supporters as a ‘basket of deplorables.’ Afterward, she told one adviser that she knew she had ‘just stepped in it,'” reports The Times.
After the first round of criticism for the comment, Clinton attempted an apology, but still managed to insult a large swath of the American people.
In addition to her insulting rhetoric, was a lackluster ground game, at times relying too much on text messaging and other technology instead of actual face-to-face voter engagement. In some cases, the Clinton campaign efforts may actually have worked to mobilize Trump supporters.
Much like the Republicans were forced to do after their devastating 2012 loss, the Democrats may need to print out a lengthy election autopsy.
Rule No. 1: Don't insult half the country.