Convinced they’d easily win the Electoral College, in the closing days of the campaign the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign were worried they’d lose the popular vote to Donald Trump.
As such, rather than focus on swings states like Michigan or Wisconsin, the DNC followed a plan conceived by interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile that poured millions into places like Democratic Party strongholds like Chicago and New Orleans in an attempt to bolster Clinton’s overall vote total.
This focus on the popular vote at the expense of the electoral vote may have ended up costing Clinton the White House.
Politico reports that there “were millions approved for transfer from Clinton’s campaign for use by the DNC — which, under a plan devised by Brazile to drum up urban turnout out of fear that Trump would win the popular vote while losing the electoral vote, got dumped into Chicago and New Orleans, far from anywhere that would have made a difference in the election.”
Clinton’s victory in Illinois was never in doubt. Having been born there, Clinton won the state with 54 percent to Donald Trump’s 39 percent.
Louisiana’s results were also never in doubt. Trump won with 58 percent of the vote, but the DNC wanted to pull as many votes as possible out of New Orleans to cut into what they feared would be his popular vote challenge.
In spite of warnings from campaign staff in Michigan leading up to the election, resources were sent to safe areas as Clinton lost formerly reliable states.
In the end, Clinton easily won the popular vote with the help of Democratic strongholds California and New York, but lost Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and therefore the electoral vote and the presidency, to Trump.