Registered voters who stayed home in November likely cost Hillary Clinton the election, according to FiveThirtyEight.com’s analysis of a post-election SurveyMonkey poll. Thirty-five percent of self-identified Democrats and 33% of self-identified Independents said they did not vote. Both groups were more likely to support Mrs. Clinton while a smaller 32% of self-identified Republicans said they stayed home.
Even more damaging to Mrs. Clinton was poor turnout among non-white voters, a critical block of the “Obama Coalition” her campaign counted on replicating. Non-white voters accounted for just 25% of those who said they voted on Election Day, but were a whopping 42% of voters who stayed home. Young non-white voters were especially likely to stay home. Of white voters who did not vote, 30% were 18-29 years old. By comparison, 43% of Hispanic non-voters and 46% of black non-voters were 18-29.
Why did these voters stay home? They said they didn’t like the candidates. As FiveThirtyEight.com points out, many of these should have voted for Mrs. Clinton; if they had, she would likely have won but her campaign failed to give them a reason to do so.
