Understanding the Surprising 2016 Presidential Election Outcome
This paper analyzes the factors behind Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the 2016 presidential election. Drawing on scholarship by Larry J. Sabato, Marc J. Hetherington, and others, it examines historical parallels to the 1948 election, Trump's appeal to anti-immigration sentiment and white resentment, the broader anti-establishment undercurrent in American political culture, and the specific liabilities that undermined Hillary Clinton's campaign — including the email controversy, gender bias, and her association with the Obama administration. The paper argues that, viewed in retrospect, the outcome was less surprising than it initially appeared.
- Historical Parallels: 1948 and 2016: Comparing Trump's upset victory to Truman's 1948 win
- Trump's Populist Appeal and the Anti-Establishment Wave: Anti-immigration sentiment, white resentment, and outsider image
- Clinton's Campaign Liabilities: Email scandal, gender bias, and primary divisiveness
- Conventional Wisdom and the Election's Broader Context: Economic conditions, Obama's legacy, and third-term reluctance
- Works Cited: Scholarly sources cited in the paper
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- Grounds its analysis in specific scholarly sources — Sabato, Hetherington, and Schrieffer & Clark — lending academic credibility to what could otherwise be purely opinion-driven commentary.
- Uses a historical analogy (the 1948 Truman–Dewey race) to contextualize the 2016 result, helping readers understand the election within a broader pattern of American political history.
- Presents multiple, intersecting explanatory factors (race, gender, anti-establishment sentiment, economic context) rather than reducing the outcome to a single cause.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates source-synthesizing analysis: rather than summarizing each scholar in isolation, it weaves together multiple academic perspectives to build a layered explanation of a complex political event. This technique shows the writer can use secondary sources as tools for interpretation, not just as citations.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a historical comparison before moving to Trump's specific appeal, then shifts to Clinton's weaknesses, and closes by situating the election within broader structural and historical conditions. This funnel-and-zoom structure — from analogy, to candidate-level analysis, to systemic context — is appropriate for a short analytical essay in political science.
Historical Parallels: 1948 and 2016
The election of 2016 produced a shocking outcome in the eyes of most political analysts. As noted by Larry J. Sabato, there are many parallels between the elections of 1948 and 2016. In 1948, Harry Truman — who was predicted to lose to Thomas E. Dewey — had a similar, populist "give 'em hell" style to Donald Trump. Dewey's supporters were similarly unenthusiastic as many of Clinton's supporters, who backed her more as the anti-Trump candidate than as someone they genuinely admired. But the parallels end there: Truman was still an incumbent president who had a lifetime of political service, while Trump, in stark contrast, had never held public office.
Trump's Populist Appeal and the Anti-Establishment Wave
Sabato notes that, first and foremost, Trump rode a wave of anti-immigration sentiment and white resentment of what many perceived as encroachments upon their privilege. Many individuals who had voted for Obama shifted their allegiance back to the Republican Party because of Trump's apparent outsider image. Those who had questioned Obama's legitimacy also found Trump's campaign appealing, given that Trump had effectively launched his career in modern politics by accusing President Obama of not having been born in the United States and of secretly practicing Islam.
As noted by Marc J. Hetherington, a strong anti-government, anti-politician undercurrent has long run through American political discourse. Trump embodied this ethos. Even though it might seem contradictory that a lower-income person whose economic interests appeared more aligned with Clinton's policies would support a politician who vowed, for example, to abolish financial support for health insurance, support for Trump is consistent with the broader cultural idealization of outspoken renegades over accomplished technocrats.
Clinton's Campaign Liabilities
In retrospect, the campaign's outcome should not seem as much of a surprise as it was to critics. Clinton was dogged by a series of accusations about her use of a personal email account for official government business during her tenure as Secretary of State. Even if the nefarious purpose of doing so was never clearly established, the constant focus on this issue prevented the campaign from centering the actual policy concerns voters cared about.
A number of critics have also suggested that Clinton's gender counted against her. Allegations that she did not embody appropriate feminine ideals had followed her since she was First Lady, when her comments — widely perceived as disparaging toward women who stayed home — became a flashpoint. Regardless, the combined ideological barriers she faced as both a perceived liberal and a woman proved too difficult to overcome. Her contested Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders, who ran to her ideological left, further complicated her ability to project a clear and compelling vision of the president she intended to be.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.