
The Two Americas of 2016 - erickhill
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/16/us/politics/100000004770186.mobile.html
======
masonic
"Popular vote For Clinton 50.4% ... For Trump 49.6%"

The NYT just can't stop lying in their election coverage.

The true percentages were 47.9% vs 47.1% as of 18:50 EST per CBS.

It does, however, fit their narrative that Clinton won a "majority" of the
popular vote, as opposed to a _plurality_.

~~~
erickhill
The NYT's numbers were based on the count as of Wednesday, Nov. 16. The final
tally still hasn't been completely collected. You're referring to the day of
the election, I think. The NYT is referring to the continuous counts (which
still aren't done). That's not lying. That's reporting the changing facts as
they were when the article was written.

Not sure why that's confusing.

~~~
grzm
Well, one part of it that's potentially misleading is that the percentages add
up to 100%, which means they're likely discarding the votes that didn't go to
Clinton or Trump. It would be much better, IMO, if they included the vote
breakdown and explained how they're deriving their numbers.

~~~
drewmate
I hadn't even considered that until you mentioned it. It's subtle, and
crossing that 50% threshold is a very powerful notion that I (and likely many
others) simply glossed over.

This seems to be a dark pattern that pushes a narrative. In reality, looking
at popular vote totals in an electoral college contest is not particularly
helpful. If the contest were an actual popular vote, the candidates would
campaign completely differently, and the turnout would change entirely
(especially in solid red/blue states.)

~~~
erickhill
You're probably right, although it's hard to know until we try. Take a look at
California - solidly blue, and no real chance of changing any time soon. Yet
millions vote anyway. One could make the argument ballot measures bring people
out as much or more than the presidential contest. But who knows?

The truth is that in ~30 states, most folks don't feel like their vote counts.
"Why bother... it's a blue/red state and my 1 vote won't matter." Except, it
_could_.

Meanwhile, I have family members linking to dubious sites claiming all 40
million illegal aliens voted for Hillary (somehow), so everything is hogwash
anyway. It's a confusing, scary world we've created.

