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This chapter assesses how Florida’s county election administration performed in the 2016 general election.With allegations that vote totals are now “rigged,” the performance of the election administrators is crucial to maintaining election legitimacy and US democracy.

Chapter 8 examines the case of the Russian partisan intervention in the 2016 U.S. elections in light of this book’s arguments and the currently available information. It first analyzes the causes of this intervention, finding preliminary support for the theoretical framework on why such meddling occurs. It then studies the effects of the Russian covert intervention on the election results, with the main focus on the hacking and document-leaking component, using multiple methods: estimating their effects using PEIG and aggregate data from the U.S. in 2016, two pre-election surveys with relevant questions, and Google search data on these leaks in the U.S. and the key “swing states.” It finds that the Russian intervention had a significant pro-Trump effect on the results and it was probably large enough to have led Hillary Clinton to lose at least 75 EC votes—sufficient to lead to her defeat in the electoral college.

This chapter unpacks myths about the white working class and its support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Popular media wrongly suggest that millions of white, economically disadvantaged, uneducated blue-collar workers were responsible for Trump's victory. The chapter examines the evidence, showing that two-thirds of Trump voters made more than the median income but more than half of those without college degrees were in the top half of the income distribution. The chapter suggests that these voters were not motivated by enthusiasm about Trump's priorities but rather were protesting a system that had left them behind. The myth of the struggling white working-class voter, clamoring for Trump to make America great again, ignores the millions of working-class workers who are people of color and misunderstands racism. This chapter shows how important it is to listen to Trump voters, to understand why working-class people are angry, and to question the media's narrative of the white working class.

This book is an examination of how the Trump campaign won Floridain 2016. Florida, a perennial battleground state, was a microcosm of hisnational victory. Trump secured suburban and Republican voters thatmany thought would abandon him; white voters overwhelming supportedhim; and even Hispanic voters cast some ballots for the controversial candidate.With Election Day expectations overturned, there is still a sense ofshock at the chaos that has continued from the campaign into Trump’sadministration. While few have been able to successfully predict anythingabout the 2016 presidential election and the ensuing administration, we hopeto provide a thorough explanation of what happened and why.

Chapter 6 extends the book’s analysis of the strategic alignment of the Russian messaging and Trump’s electoral needs by looking at efforts to demobilize a number of key Democratic constituencies, particularly Black citizens and Sanders’s supporters. Jamieson details Russia’s extensive efforts to reach Black audiences through the use of many popular accounts across the social media platforms, which sought to sow a mistrust of mainstream media and the status quo, counterweight Trump’s rhetoric on race and crime, and suppress the Black vote. Similarly, hacked content and troll messaging were used to convert or suppress the Sanders vote by heightening antipathy and alienation toward Clinton and questioning Sanders’s religion. The trolls also attempted to redirect liberals to cast a vote for Jill Stein instead of Clinton.

This chapter describes several major challenges observed during the 2016 US elections. Five issues pose growing risks to electoral legitimacy in the 2016 race: partisan polarization over electoral procedures; lack of public confidence following widespread claims of fraud, vote rigging, and the suppression of voter rights; the risks of hacking; the consequences of deregulating campaign funding; and the lack of professional standards of electoral management. It argues that without a comprehensive program of reforms addressing these problems, in a close, heated, and bitterly fought election, the 2016 contest could be a critical “tipping point” triggering lasting harm to its legitimacy.

This chapter summarizes why Florida was so critical to the Donald Trump victory in the 2016 presidential election.Trump’s outsider campaign dominated the state in the primary and was enough to win the general election.

Twelve Michigan counties that voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012 flipped to assure Donald Trump’s surprising 2016 victory in this supposed “blue wall” state. To understand how this happened, this chapter tracks the tactics and organizational capabilities of the statewide Trump and Clinton campaigns and looks closely at rural Manistee County, where a pronounced swing from Obama to Trump coincided with increased voter turnout. As the research reveals, the Trump campaign inspired new grassroots enthusiasm and tapped into preexisting conservative networks, including those built by Americans for Prosperity-Michigan and the Tea Party. While local Democrats exhibited tepid support for Clinton, strong anti-establishment and identity-based sentiments fueled support for Trump.

This chapter argues that popular reactions to recent presidents have consistently reinforced the widening demographic, cultural, ideological, and even cognitive differences between ordinary Republicans and Democrats. Presidential candidates and presidents have thus been both the instruments and victims of the polarized partisanship that has emerged as the defining feature of American national politics during this century. Polarization was essential to the election of Donald Trump, whose campaign and conduct in office have so far served to magnify the demographic and cultural divisions between ordinary Democrats and Republicans. Although Trump executed a hostile takeover of the Republican Party and continues to attract vigorous criticism from many of its luminaries, his impact during his first year in office on how people view his party has been at least as large as that of previous presidents. In the intra-party struggle for the hearts and minds of ordinary Republicans, Trump has so far emerged as the consistent winner. But given his unpopularity outside core Republican circles, and especially among growing segments of the population, Trump’s dominance and prospective rebranding of the party threatens to erode its popular image, reputation, and appeal both immediately and for the long term.

Chapter 1 of Cyberwar outlines how we know that Russian agents, in the form of both hackers and trolls, intervened in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. After briefly summarizing the state of U.S.-Russia relations leading up to the 2016 U.S. election, this chapter details Trump’s and Putin’s denials of Russian interventions and the conspiracy theories used to deflect attention from the Russian origins of hacked content. The chapter also synopsizes the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that confirmed Russian involvement and outlines the scope of the book and the assumptions underlying it.

Throughout Cyberwar, Jamieson argues that taken together the Russian interventions, including press use of the hacked content, troll messaging, disinformation, and the changes in the media and campaign agendas, were sufficient to probably have affected the 2016 Electoral College outcome. Part Five responds to critics who challenge that conclusion. In the process, it examines the controversies over what we know about the nature, extent, timing, targets, and impact of the Russian attacks and their effects.

Conspiracy theories are not fringe ideas, tucked neatly away in the dark corners of society. They are politically, economically, and socially relevant to all of us. They are intertwined with our everyday lives in countless ways. Just like other ideas, they have consequences which can sometimes be deadly. Conspiracy theories can also encourage good behavior and uncover wrongdoing. Beyond shaping the composition and nature of governments through democratic processes, conspiracy theories exert a profound effect on policy choices. Sometimes this is a top-down process by which political elites use conspiracy rhetoric to justify or propagate particular policies; in other instances conspiracy theories can percolate from the bottom up, and affect policy through direct democracy or by influencing the actions of otherwise nonconspiratorial elites. Conspiracy theories are often discussed, but much less understood. What do we know about conspiracy theories and what answers continue to elude us? What makes conspiracy theories so important now?

This chapter examines the function of the electoral college during the controversial 2016 presidential elections. It argues that the electoral college did not work at all as its defenders said it would. Instead of encouraging candidates to take their cases to the entire country and pay special attention to small states, it distorted the electoral process and gave the candidates strong incentives to ignore most of the country, especially the smallest states. It did not guarantee victory to the candidate receiving the most votes. It did not ensure national harmony, and it did not provide the winner a broad coalition and a mandate to govern. Moreover, the electoral college did not preclude extreme partisan polarization. As such, the chapter asserts that there is a need to focus directly and systematically on the core questions surrounding the electoral college and assess whether it warrants a role in American democracy.

Chapter 4 examines the second prerequisite required for hacked and generated content to influence the U.S. election: was it aligned with Trump’s messages and electoral interests? Jamieson argues that the content generated by Russian trolls centered on concerns on Trump’s agenda, such as fear of downward mobility and cultural dislocation. The trolls’ efforts to sow discord by exacerbating cross-group conflict and fueling dissatisfaction with the status quo also advantaged the Trump campaign. Russian-hacked emails and troll content reinforced Trump’s attacks against Hillary Clinton, underscoring both the notion that she was corrupt and dishonest and that her stance on key issues threatened the interests of working-class and culturally anxious Americans.

Chapter Five tackles the Truther phenomenon that has bubbled to the surface more readily after the 2016 Presidential election. Populist and conspiracists are given clear definitions, how these groups converge around “Folk politics.” It goes into detail how conspiracy theories, populist rhetoric, and Donald Trump were so attractive to Intuitionists.

This chapter examines the 2016 election through the lens of the Electoral College. The election represents the sixth time the popular vote winner did not win the Electoral College vote. It also represents the most faithless votes cast for president in any presidential election, and it is the second time in the past three elections that a state split its electoral vote between presidential candidates. Particular attention is devoted to the so-called Hamilton elector movement that aimed to have electors select an alternative candidate to Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. A survey of the 2016 Electoral College reveals that a record number of electors considered voting contrary to expectations, and most all electors were lobbied to do so. Electoral College lobbyists consisted of citizens throughout the country and members of the body itself. Reservations over elector discretion draws attention to the differences between the original Electoral College and the evolved body.