Digby: "Trump's pollster agrees it was the Comey effect" (Read the whole, infuriating thing.) [View all]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
December 02, 2016

<<Digby: Trump's pollster (Fabrizio) and Clinton's pollster (Benenson) talk about the race. Trump's man says that the race came down to four counties in Florida and one in Michigan. Five counties, people.

...“When you really drill down on this election, if you change the vote in five counties, four in Florida, one in Michigan, we’d be having a totally opposite conversation right now,” Fabrizio said of the race. “For all the money that was spent, for the all the effort that was made, literally four counties in Florida, one county in Michigan puts us at 261 [electoral] votes and makes Hillary Clinton the president. So, remember that.”...

Digby: That is not a landslide folks. With Clinton winding up winning between 2.5 and 3 million more votes it's a lucky fluke.

...In the final week after FBI director James Comey released a vague letter saying that the agency was examining new emails found on Anthony Weiner’s computer, the husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, Benenson said that Clinton’s defectors just didn’t come back.

“Ours were coming back after the third debate,” Benenson said of the Clinton defectors. “We had actually solidified our lead for a period of days after that debate. Comey happens on that Friday, eleven days out, and that’s when we see—our defectors leave, their defectors get loyal and that keeps moving and probably in the end tips the balance.”...

...But Fabrizio said they “held their breath” because just days later Comey cleared Clinton once again. Benenson said that second announcement did not help them either “because it just put it back into the conversation again.”

Digby: There are a lot of reasons why this election turned out the way it did. Both candidates were widely loathed by half of a polarized country which made it a difficult sell on both sides. They all knew it would be close and were just trying to keep people from defecting in the last week.

This is where Giuliani delivered for Trump. He was clearly working with the FBI agents in the New York office and Comey either maliciously or stupidly went with the plan. It was timed perfectly and it worked. >>

Digby is quoting and commenting on this article by Gideon Resnick:
"Donald Trump’s Pollster Says the Election Came Down to Five Counties
This wasn’t a “landslide,” Tony Fabrizio says, it was a squeaker—and James Comey helped pull the Republican across the finish line.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/02/donald-trump-s-pollster-says-the-election-came-down-to-five-counties.html