NATIONWIDE, THE STORY over the past couple of weeks has been how Donald Trump outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Back here in Boston the converse was true: Hillary Clinton trounced Donald Trump. Clinton did slightly better in Boston than President Obama did in both 2008 and 2012. Even further, Clinton did not […]
2016 Election
Posted inThe Download
Unpopular vote
President Samuel J. Tilden. Ring a bell? Probably not since he lost. Tilden was the first of four presidential candidates in American history to fall victim to the Electoral College, winning the popular vote but losing where it counts, in the state-level vote that determines the election winner. Tilden lost to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, […]
Posted inThe Download
Marginal errors
The ground shook at 10:25 Tuesday night. There were still a number of battleground states with incomplete results and polls remained open on the West Coast but the presidential race had a significant development at that point despite no clear winner emerging yet. That’s when the estimable Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog crossed the line and […]
Posted inThe Download
Patriot politics
Hillary Clinton had President and Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen, and Jon Bon Jovi campaigning for her on the final day of the 2016 presidential race, but Donald Trump was not to be outdone. At a campaign event in New Hampshire on Monday, he said he had the Hall of Fame duo of Tom Brady and […]
Posted inThe Download
Come(y) again?
The October surprise that threatened to upend the presidential race days before Election Day has turned into the November 180 that could return the contest onto the trajectory it been on after all. Call it the granddaddy of all Emily Litella moments. With a curt, three-paragraph letter to congressional leaders on Sunday, FBI director James […]
Posted inThe Download
The Codcast: Charter school question at the wire
The vitriol and division that have been the hallmarks of the presidential race nationally have found their way to the state ballot question in Massachusetts on expanding charter schools. The contest over Question 2 has drawn more than $30 million in spending between the two sides, with emotionally driven arguments from both camps about who […]
Posted inThe Download
It’s Weld’s move
After months of one of the most bizarre — and ugly — presidential campaigns in modern times, decision time has finally arrived. For American voters? Yes. But also for Bill Weld. The state’s quirky former governor reinvented himself earlier this year as a “Libertarian for life,” calling it a gift to be liberated from the […]
Posted inThe Download
CNN caught with pants down
Partisan commentators may make for lively TV, but CNN is discovering that they can also work as spies inside a news organization. CNN announced on Monday that it severed ties on Oct. 14 with Democratic strategist Donna Brazile after hacked emails from WikiLeaks indicated she obtained questions prepared for candidate events and shared them in […]
Posted inState House News Service, The Download
The Codcast: 2 pollsters talk shop
Americans love polls. Except when they don’t say what they want them to say. Donald Trump could not tout his poll numbers enough when he was winning the surveys and the votes in the primaries and then early on in the election cycle when they showed him with a lead over Hillary Clinton. Now, as […]
Posted inThe Download
Trump trips, big league
When it comes to playing in the political major league, Donald Trump is truly an apprentice. His campaign already looked close to dead going into last night’s final debate. Trump pounded a final nail in the coffin. He initially seemed more steady and composed than in previous outings — even if often light on specifics […]