Presidential Election 2016

Before Barack Obama's presidency was coming to an end; the 2016 Election was already starting to get interesting. The Democrats were not sure if Vice President Joe Biden would be running after the death of his eldest son, Beau to brain cancer on May 30, 2015. By this time, both Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who released an Internet video in April 2015) announced her intentions to run for President in 2016, and Senator Bernie Sanders; a self proclaimed Democratic-Socialist from Vermont had thrown his hat into the ring. By October 2015, the Vice President declared that due to the grieving process and timing to mount a serious campaign for the Democratic Nomination he would not be running for president. That led many in the Democratic Party leadership to think that Hillary Clinton was their nominee by heir apparent law.

On the Republican side there was another early frontrunner/nominee heir apparent named Jeb Bush who was running. It was at this time that people started thinking about since 1981 a Bush or a Clinton had served as either Vice President or President in 28 of the last 35 years. That would mean if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016; two political families would control the politics for 32 years, or if Jeb Bush won in 2016; one political family would control the politics for 24 years. Then something happened.

Donald Trump had been a successful real estate mogul in New York since the 1970s and was the star of his own NBC reality show called the Apprentice. In addition to his properties and his TV show, Trump leant his name to other ventures like water, steak, wine, and a later debunked university. There were also the casinos.

In 2015, Trump had discovered that NBC was paying Gwen Stefani of the Voice $2 million more than him. Having the history of misogyny that he had towards women, Trump decided that in order to get a $2 million raise from NBC he would have to show what a hot commodity he was for them. Trump thought if he announced his intentions of running for President getting his face on every television screen in the country for the next two weeks, NBC would pay him the $2 million and the campaign would end.

Well, the media decided to have some fun by promoting Trump for clicks, which meant ratings, which meant big money. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC's Morning Joe played right along with Trump granting him access to the show by visiting or by phone. In February 2016, CBS CEO Less Moonves stated at a Morgan Stanley Conference that Donald Trump is bad for America but is damn good for ratings.

The campaign for Donald Trump lasted longer than July 1, 2016. More Republicans like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich joined Bush and Trump on the trail. Americans were listening and hearing what Donald Trump was saying, which is what many were thinking too. Also, being a billionaire like he was, Trump came across as his own man not beholden to special interests.

The campaign for both sides was not without its scandals. In March 2015, it was reported that Hillary Clinton was using a personal e-mail server for State Department business. An FBI investigation was launched. In her book WHAT HAPPENED, Clinton explained why she did what she did with her e-mails. She thought that with all of the Internet hacking going on with government servers by China and Russia it was a good idea to have sensitive e-mails in a server that was protected by the United States Secret Service 24/7. The other scandal that came back to haunt her was the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012 while she was Secretary of State. After the 11 hour long hearing that Secretary Clinton volunteered to come to, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy let the quiet part come out that the Republican Party did this hearing to hurt Hillary Clinton politically.

A scandal or a constitutional crisis that occurred in February 2016 was that of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Article II, Section 2, clause 2 of the United States Constitution states that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress May by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."

President Obama waited a month after Scalia's death to think to name someone to be nominated and confirmed. He even went to Utah senator Orin Hatch to find out whom he thought would be a good compromise nominee. Senator Hatch said Merrick Garland. But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would not let such a nominee come up for a vote on the Judiciary Committee to go to the full Senate for a debate or vote.

McConnell's reasoning and tried using Joe Biden's 1992 logic as a precedent that in an Election Year, let the people decide by electing a new president or continuing with the current one and then nominate a new Supreme Court Justice. That was March 2016, just eight months before an election and ten months before the Inauguration of the next president. That would bite McConnell four years later with just weeks before the 2020 Election that Ruth Bater Ginsburg passed away with McConnell allowing a fast nomination and vote for Amy Coney Barrett.

After a hard fought Primary for Hillary Clinton and an easy Primary for Donald Trump, both were victorious in receiving their respective Party's nomination for President. At the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, speakers like General Michael Flynn would rouse the crowd with chants of "LOCK HER UP!" referring to 30,000+ missing e-mails from Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump would declare that he alone could fix it. The Democrats' convention in Philadelphia started with controversy claiming that the system was rigged for Hillary Clinton resulting in Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigning her Chair at the convention. In the past, when one Party's convention is going on, the other Party respects that and stays out of the News cycle. Donald Trump broke that precedent on July 27, 2016, the day before Hillary Clinton's Acceptance Speech where he held a press conference stating; "Russia if you're listening, find the 33,000 e-mails and you will be rewarded."

After the conventions, the General Election was underway. If you listen to speeches by Donald Trump post convention, they're almost Bernie Sandersesque in substance. The media was sure of a Hillary Clinton win, as was the Democratic candidate that the media would cut from major policy speeches at rallies in swing states in the Midwest that Clinton would give and show 90 minutes of an empty podium at a Trump rally. Fox News was not exclusive in this practice; CNN and MSNBC did this too.

In the Debates that fall, Clinton would make a point about Trump's connection to Putin and the danger the United States and the world would be in if Putin's Puppet was President. Trump would do everything from interrupting Clinton during statements to threatening to instruct his Attorney General to investigate Clinton for prosecution and to be put in jail, to lingering behind her when she was making a statement. He even went so far as to invite women who have in the past accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct to try and intimidate her.

As the campaign wore on and was close to an end, early voting in some states was also underway; Hillary Clinton was preparing for her victory, and Donald Trump was preparing to buy a possible media conglomerate to counter the new President for the next four years. Donald Trump admitted that his running for President would make him money. Then, on October 28, 2016, 11 days out from the Election, the FBI reopened the E-mail investigation against Hillary Clinton. Polls were tightening but the Clinton/Kaine Campaign was confident of a victory.

In the early morning hours of November 9, 2016, the networks had called the Election for Donald Trump. He had beaten Hillary Clinton 304 Electoral Votes to 227 Electoral Votes. But, like in the Presidential Election 2000, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote 65,853,514 votes to Trump's 62,984,828 popular votes. What did Clinton in was that Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin narrowly went for Trump. Hillary Clinton had taken those states and Ohio for granted and outside of Ohio who overwhelmingly voted for Trump, the other three states, had Clinton paid more attention to them could have swung her way.  The other issue could be that Bernie Bro's were too into purity candidates and either stayed home or voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.  They may have even voted for Donald Trump to send a message to the Democrats.

Like 2000, the 2016 Presidential Election will be studied by contemporaries and historians alike. Like Hillary Clinton titled her 2017 Election memoir, they too will ask, What Happened? This collection will hopefully help answer that question.

See also:

• Presidential Election 1940
• Presidential Election 1944
• Presidential Election 1948
• Presidential Election 1952
• Presidential Election 1956
• Presidential Election 1960
• Presidential Election 1964
• Presidential Election 1968
• Presidential Election 1972
• Presidential Election 1976
• Presidential Election 1980
• Presidential Election 1984
• Presidential Election 1988
• Presidential Election 1992
• Presidential Election 1996
• Presidential Election 2000
• Presidential Election 2004
• Presidential Election 2008
• Presidential Election 2012
• Presidential Election 2016
• Presidential Election 2020
• Presidential Election 2024