Week IV: Emails

The Presidential Election of 2016 probably taught American voters more about emails than they ever sought to know. "Emailgate" flooded news cycles, and was a controversial topic the Clinton campaign just couldn't shake. But, before I try and analyze this massive beast, I want to establish some parameters: I am not trying to establish whether or not Clinton was guilty of any crime, I am not trying to say that Clinton should or should not have been indicted, and I'm not trying to impress any opinions on how this scandal should have affected Clinton's campaign. Rather, I'm focusing on how this scandal, specifically the re-opening of the investigation in late October, changed the outcome of the election.

Also, as a side note (because this is my blog and I have content control*enter evil laugh here*), I really hate that we keep adding 'gate' to the end of every major scandal. It doesn't roll off the tongue. Remember when we used to call things conspiracies, or affairs, or "Teapot Dome"? Ah, the good old days.

I personally don't think this email scandal single-handedly destroyed Clinton's campaign, but it was detrimental in one key element: how people defined Hillary Clinton.

This scandal, combined with Benghazi and the "Drain the Swamp" rhetoric coming from Trump's team, helped create the persona of "Crooked Hillary". Rather than seeing Clinton for what she hoped to present herself as (an established politician, with positive credentials and experience), the electorate and media consistently associated her with corruption. This can be seen in this Gallup word association bubble, where "lie", "scandal", and "email" are three of the most commonly used words among Americans. And although Hillary had hoped to leave it behind after apologizing, the "Crooked Hillary" identity was reinforced by several strong forces.

The force most relevant to this blog post? James Comey.

Comey was at the forefront of media coverage this past election cycle. There was some skepticism as to Comey's intentions in publicly re-opening the case, especially considering he's a registered Republican and was an appointed official under George W. Bush. However, it's important to note that Comey broke party lines to challenge Bush's "warrantless wiretapping" program, has a relatively bipartisan history, and was later appointed by Obama and approved by a Republican Senate. What I'm trying to say is that Comey's political affiliations aren't publicly strong in any direction, and it'd be oversimplification to try and attribute his decision making to a bubble he filled in on his voter registration.

The importance of Comey's involvement comes down to how his public announcement of re-opening the case affected the momentum of Clinton's campaign. John Podesta, the Clinton Campaign Chairman, has attributed Clinton's loss to the FBI as recently as February 22nd. He claims the announcement was "too close to the election", and brought back doubts to voters minds of Clinton's trustworthiness. Ron Johnson and other Republican leaders were able to use the re-opened investigation to remind voters that Clinton could potentially be impeached. Whether or not that's true is dependent upon who you ask, but for those who agreed with Johnson, this meant potential instability and a sea of complicated investigations under a new administration.

What mattered most is how voters were affected by this perception. This Gallup poll shows that "trustworthy" is in the top three most important traits voters seek in a candidate. Clinton's campaign needed to present herself as trustworthy to maintain support with people who were already undecided. But Clinton lost momentum with voters, and the already weak image of herself as a trustworthy candidate was shattered, when this scandal came back into the spotlight.

I tried to look to polls to scientifically show how the announcement may have affected favorability, but those research results weren't very helpful. Technically, polls showed no significant change in how Clinton was perceived following this announcement. However, in AP US Government and our Elections Capstone, we learned that polls can take up to two weeks after an event occurs to accurately reflect how a population feels about something. With the announcement coming only 11 days before the election, the best polling data we have comes from the actual election results, which only reflect opinions of voters who showed up. Because of the proximity, we may never truly know the consequences of Comey's decision to publicly announce the re-opening of the investigation.

Sadly, we're running out of words and I don't want to cut my short aside on the use of "gate". So, I'm going to leave you with some readings in case you are interested. The first is an elaboration on why it's important for candidates to brand themselves, so you can learn more about why "Crooked Hillary" was so harmful to Clinton's campaign. The second is about the effect of the emails on media coverage. I will probably talk about this more when I get to the media blog post, but hopefully this will hold you over.

And alas, a mind map. May you enjoy the stickers.