Unraveling 2016: Comments on Gelman and Azari's 19 Things

Abstract

Scholars, pundits, and wonks will be studying the 2016 election for a long time. The sheer number of unprecedented elements of the 2016 U.S. elections produced some shock fatigue and left even seasoned election watchers scratching their heads (Fallows 2017). Drawing on insights from data science, statistics, and political science, Julia Azari and Andrew Gelman identify an impressive 19 potentially productive threads to pull on in our attempt to unravel the mysteries of 2016. There are so many features of the 2016 election that strayed from the status quo that, like a spoiled experimental design, it is challenging for scholars to explain exactly why the election turned in the surprising ways it did. To name just a few, 2016 included the first female major party candidate, the first modern election with evidence of undue foreign influence, the first election with a nominee who had no government or military experience of any kind, and the list goes on. While some may find the Gelman–Azari treatment dissatisfying for being too shallow on any individual point, too contrived, or just too long of a list, I submit that their holistic approach to breaking down the oddities of 2016 is necessary given the circumstances. Here, I focus on four of the items on their list—two that I find worth underscoring and strongly worthy of further exploration, and two that are perhaps too complex to pursue, even if perfectly valid.