Relitigating the 2016 Election: Why Is The Presidential Race So Close?

Note: This story originally appeared on my blog on October 30, 2016.

2nd Note: “Relitigating the 2016 Election” is a series of the contemporaneous blog posts that I wrote in the lead up to the 2016 election. As these posts reflect my views at that time, they have not been updated.

Earlier this month, I was starting to breathe a little easier. Donald Trump got caught on tape bragging about committing sexual assaults, Hillary Clinton destroyed an obviously unprepared Trump at third presidential debate, and several women came forward to allege that Trump’s vulgar boasts weren’t just idle talk. (The number stands at twelve at this writing.) Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers went up and states where Clinton shouldn’t have had a chance (here’s looking at you, Texas) suddenly became competitive. It looked like my political fantasy of having a female president were about to come true.

Then, on Friday, James Comey of the FBI, released a letter to Congress detailing the discovery of new emails pertaining to the probe of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server while she served as Secretary of State.

WTF???

This story had “politically motivated hit job” written all over it. Not only did Comey release the letter against the advice of the Department of Justice, which feared that it would unduly influence the election, the emails themselves were nothing to get excited about. None of the emails were sent or…