Week 45: "Pirates, Deplorables, and Emails: Welcome to 2016" (October 30, 2016)

Dear Readers,

The election is approaching very rapidly. I’m going to help you make sense of everything.

Days until General Election: 9

Not Again...

For the gazillionth time, the lead story this news cycle is emails. In the FBI probe of ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner over explicit messages he sent to various women, they found emails his wife, Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff Huma Abedin, had sent to Clinton. The worst part is, we know very little about what is in them. The main things we know are that something bad might be in them, FBI Director James Comey did some fishy stuff, and the swing this has over the race is small. Not small enough to be ignored, but still small.

What’s in the emails?

In short: we don’t know. Comey and the FBI haven’t made much of a statement. For all we know, the emails could have been previously reviewed by the FBI already.

What did James Comey do wrong?

“Attorney General Loretta Lynch wanted Comey to follow DOJ protocols and traditions and not reveal the discovery of new emails that might be pertinent to Clinton’s case.” - Huffington Post

It was an error for Comey to release this information, although Comey justified it by saying he needed to update Congress since he had said the investigation was completed. It’s also been alleged that he only informed Congressional Republicans, and Congressional Democrats learned about the letter from a tweet sent by Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

What effect will it have?

According to a YouGov poll of voters in battleground states, it makes 21% of undecided voters less likely to support Clinton, which is a non-negligible effect, but it could be balanced out by a potential development the Clinton campaign has on Trump.

So what actually happened?

From what I can discern, James Comey found some new emails regarding Hillary in his investigation of Anthony Weiner, and decided to inform Congress that the investigation might have to be re-opened. Any motives he might have had, significance of this move, or effects on the race have yet to be determined.

NOTE: Updates from this will continue to come out, so don’t expect this to be perfectly up to date

Deplorables: Just Another Week with Trump Supporters

During a routine chant of “U-S-A!” at a Trump rally in Phoenix, a Trump supporter turned around to shout “Jew-S-A” at the press, while displaying an anti-Semitic hand gesture. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway agreed to call the anti-Semitic protestor “deplorable”. Later, an analytics firm found that 35,5% of Trump supporters on Twitter also followed one of 10 selected white supremacist accounts.

The Truth Behind Trump’s VP Choice

Back in July, when Donald Trump decided to choose his vice president, he decided on Mike Pence - or did he? New research from the New York Post finds that he initially sent an offer to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, but was forced to rescind when under pressure from his then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Manafort told Trump that the campaign plane was malfunctioning (it wasn’t), causing Trump to hear Pence’s pitch one last time. By some coincidence, Trump wound up choosing Pence.

Weekly Predictions:

Electoral Votes: Clinton 352, Trump 186

Popular Vote: Clinton +5

Senate: Democrats 51, Republicans 49

This Week In World Elections

Iceland: The Icelandic parliamentary elections were held yesterday. The Progressive Party fell from first to fourth place, as the Independence party wound up with the most seats easily. Notably, the Pirate Party wound up in third place, gaining 7 seats to wind up with 10. Containing 7 parties, the election was chaotic.

Thanks for reading! As usual, comments are welcome!