Did Jill Stein (voters) throw the election to Trump?

For the Mathematically and/or Integrity Challenged:

Jill Stein (and her voters) are being blamed for causing Hillary Clinton to lose to Trump. Lets see if that is even possible. I used data from the Politico website...there are probably variations in the "official" vote total at this point, and if you manage to find one that is enough different from this one to make a difference, then I would like to see it. For now, I have gone through every state via the Politico website, and these are the results I found.

In the states that Trump won, here is a comparison between votes for Stein, and the margin that Trump had over Clinton. Where the Trump Margin number is bigger, that means that the Stein votes made no difference:

State..............Stein................Trump Margin
Alabama........9,287................585,841
Alaska...........4,394.................37,773
ARIZONA......23,721...............85,504 (EDITED)
Arkansas........9,837................299,175
Florida............64,019..............119,761
Georgia............0......................231,323
Idaho...............8,464...............217,522
Indiana.............0......................525,823
Iowa.................11,119..............148,133
Kansas.............22,698.............241,221
Kentucky..........13,913..............578,108
Louisiana..........14,018.............398,469
Mississippi........3,595...............215,532
Missouri............25,086.............530,864
Montana............7,654................99,447
Nebraska..........8,346...............211,961
North Carolina......0...................177,529
North Dakota.....3,769...............169,607
Ohio..................44,310..............454,983
Oklahoma.............0...................528,146
Pennsylvania.....48,912...............68,236
South Carolina....12,917...........294,142
South Dakota........0..................110,259
Tennessee........15,919..............650,292
Texas.................71,086.............824,192
Utah.....................5,484.............152,148
West Virginia.......8,000..............298,741
Wyoming.............2,512..............118,259

In all of the above states, Trumps margin of victory is larger than the number of votes for Stein...making Stein votes moot. Now we get to the more interesting cases.

Politico gives Trump a total of 279 electoral votes, and Clinton 228. 270 electoral votes are needed to be elected President. Politico has not awarded electoral votes for two very close states, yet.

Michigan.............50,686............11,837

If all Michigan votes for Stein went to Clinton instead, Clinton would get the 16 Michigan electoral votes. That would put her at 244, to Trump's 279.

New Hampshire...6,246............-1438

What's that -1438? Clinton leads in New Hampshire by 1438 votes. If she were to win in the final count, she would get NH's 4 electoral votes, which Politico has not awarded yet. If all of the votes for Stein were added to her total, she would still get 4 votes. That would make the totals 279 (Trump) to 248 (Clinton).

Maine..............14,006.............-19,894

Another Clinton lead. Maine awards it's electoral votes "proportionally", as opposed to all-or-nothing. Clinton has 47.8% of the Maine vote, giving her 3 votes to Trump's 1. If she got all of Steins (and we let Gary Johnson keep his), she would have 49.75% of the vote, and still get 3 to Trump's 1. No change.

Wisconsin.......30,980.............27,257

Politico has awarded Wisconsin's 10 votes to Trump. If all of Stein's votes went to Clinton instead, she would get those ten votes, and Trump would lose them, making the count 269 to 258. Neither candidate would get the required 270 electoral votes, and the 12th Amendment would apply. The House would vote and choose the next President. I will leave it up to you to figure out which candidate the obstructionist Republican House would choose.

So, there is NO mathematical possibility, even if ALL of the votes for Stein went to Clinton, for her to win the Presidency. None. So drop the attacks on the Green Party and their voters. You may need them at some point.

And if you claim that "Bernie is your guru", you might take note of this statement:

“Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids - all while the very rich become much richer.

“To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”

As an added note, when you add all of this up, Hillary Clinton has more popular votes than Trump does. The same situation happened in 2000, when Gore had more popular vote than Bush. But the popular vote doesn't count...these arcane "electoral votes" do. Perhaps THAT ought to be the target of our ire.

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received all of Johnson's votes? In Wisconsin Johnson got 106,442 to Jill's 30,980. Anyway, you are right...

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the pundits on the 'big' channels last night were decrying all the Johnson votes and how they would have made a huge difference if they went to Clinton. Completely clueless. I bet at least 80% of those would have gone to the Republican nominee if his names were not Trump.

But I have to say very disappointing numbers for Jill, overall. The country just cannot shake the duopoly stranglehold. We'll have to go through this fight all over again in 4 years, getting a reasonable third party - the Greens probably - on the ballot everywhere.

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“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”

... having the R name BE Trump, with eight years of Bush still a recent memory.

People can believe Hillary is quite evil in quite a large many of ways and still believe that Trump is the greater evil by a wide margin.

Indeed, with Trump as President, we have basically switched from the "Likely 2 degree" camp to the "Strong 2 degree" camp as a world. That is a responsibility for increasing the likelihood of substantially more fatalities than were caused by eight years of Bush and eight years of Obama put together.

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-- Virtually, etc. B)

Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

You can't count Johnson's votes towards Trump, those are also owned by Hillary, don't you know that? Why, I believe Maddow was basically saying that earlier in regards to Florida.

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Bisbonian's picture

this was specifically a response to an accusation that my voting for Stein helped to elect Trump. I ignored the fact that most Stein and Johnson voters voted they way they did because they were not enamored with the big parties, but I was giving him the ultimate benefit of the doubt...all Stein Votes go to Hillary, all Johnson votes avoid Trump. And his argument is still ridiculous.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

But I have seen people arguing that all 3rd party votes should have been for Clinton. Logic just doesn't seem to be the strong point among the most vocal of Clinton's supporters.

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Yes, but they were almost all "Never Hillary"s before they ever imagined Trump running. It's just magical thinking to imagine them losing the decade-old animosity in the face of the year old one.

Since a voter "lost" to a 3rd party is half the impact of a voter swung from the other Major Party, and since at least 75% of Johnson votes would have come from the Republican side of the partisan divide, we can count each Johnson vote as 1/4 of a net vote won by Hillary and each Stein vote as 1/2 of a net vote won by Trump.

Hillary still won the "3rd party fight" ~ she (or the reality of Trump which she campaign on) scared more R voters into withdrawing from the main contest than Trump scared D voters into withdrawing from the main contest.

Where she lost was, therefore, in the persuasion battle in which Trump persuaded enough 2012 Obama voters to vote for him instead. Which is not surprising, since "she's the most qualified, she's been in public life for decades" is exactly the wrong message to counter a reactionary populist ideologue running on "the system's broken, {inset con man's spiel here} is why I can fix it"

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-- Virtually, etc. B)

We never look at votes the Republican may have lost. That doesn't help the center right punch left, where their real enemies are. It only makes the Democrat look worse. Please cease and desist forthwith.

/snark

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Shahryar's picture

that's not final, although it looks like it's Trump's. That's 11 electoral votes, the missing number from your count.

In any case, obviously all of those Stein votes wouldn't have gone to Hillary had Jill not run. Here in Oregon if Jill hadn't been on the ballot I would have written in someone. or left it blank.

But just as some loon Hillbot could say "you all should have voted for Hillary and we wouldn't have been stuck with Trump" so too we can say "you shouldn't have forced the Hillary nomination and Bernie could have been elected".

And that's kind of what we're seeing today. A lot more "Bernie would have won" than "Stein votes gave us Trump". Their song doesn't play.

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Dhyerwolf's picture

I would have voted Johnson (not out of any liking, but to try and get him to 5%). If there was no Stein or Johnson, I would have not voted for the President. If you put a gun up to my head, I would have voted Clinton, but I'll guarantee you that at least a few Michigan/Wisconsin Stein voters would have taken Trump over Clinton. Of course, that analysis would clash directly with the Democratic party's throwing their brain out the window.

I thought all these "liberals" understood that the blame lies with the systematic power that caused this, which is the DNC, the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton herself. Of course, there was a lot of things that I thought they understood.

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ThoughtfulVoter's picture

We each have a right to vote for whom we choose, or a right to not vote at all. Hillary does NOT and never did own any of our votes.

I keep getting surveys from the turnout project, did I vote for Hillary, and then all these questions about what I thought about the campaign she ran. The most important survey question is missing, what do I think of the candidate herself and why did I choose not to vote for her.

The campaign she ran had NOTHING to do with anything. She was morally/ethically unfit for public office and NOTHING would change that fact about her character.

If the DNC had really listened to voters about why we didn't like her, and done something about that (like choosing another well respected candidate versus trying to window dress decay and garbage), then yesterday might have been a different outcome.

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Early polls showed that Bernie would be the very best candidate to run against Trump. How arrogant of the DNC to select
a mistrusted, disliked candidate because that is what TPTB wanted. I saw one Clinton yard sign and no bumper stickers.
Just think of the excitement if Bernie had run.

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CambridgePulsar1919's picture

Not a myth. Reality. Bernie really did warn them of the danger of going down the establishment path...

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/28/bernie-sanders-wa...

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Amanda Matthews's picture

Wikileaks took care of that.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

... they just don't control enough governor's mansions and state legislatures at the moment to translate that knowledge into the kind of massive point shaving scam that the Republicans pulled off this year in front of the entire press corps. For "horse race" journalists to miss that is quite something ... it's like running a 400m with the starts all in a line. "Why did the runner in the inside track win, I thought their best time was slower than that other runner?"

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-- Virtually, etc. B)

It was obvious very early that that they would rather lose with Hillary, if need be, than nominate Warren or Sanders.

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RuralLiberal's picture

she nearly lost Minnesota!! Yeah, I proudly voted for Stein here in MN, and I won't apologize to anyone!

Interestingly, Rick Nolan won reelection in the Minnesota 8th Congressional District. It was a close call against a rich bastard named Stewart Mills. Trump beat Clinton in the 8th. The common wisdom is that Nolan survived BECAUSE HE BACKED BERNIE SANDERS!!

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"Stand Up! Keep Fighting!" - Paul Wellstone

And I held my nose to vote for her, and she lost anyway. A state she was never behind in. Now I wish I did vote 3rd party, like I did in 2012.

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Love ya, mean it

detroitmechworks's picture

They'd change their policies to court them.
Instead, they BLAME 3rd parties, because it allows them their lovely little moments of mocking those who choose not to buy their bullshit.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

and he's a smarty-pants. So there!

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detroitmechworks's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj563ViG7Qg]

Funny how well this applies to the jackass...

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Bisbonian's picture

I missed that Arizona detail...I capitalized it because this is a response to a (former) friend here in Arizona, who personally blamed ME for Trump winning, by voting for Stein. This is a counter to his lame argument, so it doesn't really cover finer points like the fact that Johnson had three times as many votes as Stein (I hinted at it toward the end). Anyway, I thought I would post this here if anyone needed it...it can and will be edited as the data become firmer.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Azazello's picture

As of this morning, AZ vote totals: Hillary = 861,702 Stein = 22,734 Trump = 943,309
Hillary + Stein = 884,436, still less that Trump.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Bisbonian's picture

AZ had not been awarded yet. Giving those 11 votes to Trump negates the 12th Amendment paragraph, and makes the whole accusation really ridiculous.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

There is no way, as a Stein voter, that I would have voted for HRC or Trump...why??? Because they are both shit candidates that don't represent my values.

The day the Democrats support liberals rather than the party members with the most merit badges is the day they will start being a governing party. Hillary sucked. SHE was a lousy candidate and we told the Dems as much.

Now everyone is groping for excuses...it's their fault and they need to start owning it.

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Lenzabi's picture

True, yet they will still hurl the shame and blame game around as it means that they do not have to look at the ugly truth of their own stupidity and arrogance.

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

I tell them to just look in the mirror.

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Love ya, mean it

jamess's picture

the DemoCrasstic Party should take a long look in the mirror.

The Rust Belt rank-n-file didn't abandon the Dems, the Dems abandoned them.

I call it ... "The NAFTA Revenge" effect.

And Stein had NOTHING to do with causing that groundswell effect.

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ThoughtfulVoter's picture

Trump campaigned on bringing back jobs, and that counted for ALOT among those who have had homes foreclosed or known friends/family that did!

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jamess's picture

lose their homes, their jobs, their savings,

tend to have "loooong memories" about it,

especially when those in power either caused it,

or did little to help the victims of it ...

The victims the 1 percent, they remember being victimized.

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Daenerys's picture

My mom in Minnesota voted for Trump, and I won't hold it against her. She's the only person I know who did, and she usually votes Democrat as well and said she couldn't make up her mind.
When I got into work today, the assistant GM, who also supported Stein asked me, Are you disgusted? I said I'd feel the same way regardless of who won.

I wish Stein had gotten 5% of course.

I get why people voted for Trump and I get why people are upset that he won. It's a shitty situation no matter how you look at it. People have been demanding change for 10+ years at least and we keep getting ignored. I place the blame squarely on the DNC's shoulders. As I told my mom today, Bernie would have mopped the floor with Trump, but no, they had to go and nominate Hillary because it was her turn, and it bit them in the ass. Idiots!! The Democrats deserve all of this; they can become irrelevant because they don't represent anyone but the 1%.

I am less afraid of Trump than I am of having a Republican-controlled congress, and things like Colorado rejecting single-payer. I don't know what's going to happen next, but I'm not going to stop fighting. We must continue to work to build up the Green party. I still need to change my registration, but Green is not a registered party here in Utah, which will also be a priority.

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This shit is bananas.

Daenerys's picture

the numbers for Stein in 2012 vs yesterday. Have they grown at all? Does Politico have numbers for past elections?

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This shit is bananas.

Bisbonian's picture

I guess once the horse race was called, they lost interest. CNN has continued to update Arizona...I changed the numbers again this morning, and Jill Stein got about another thousand votes...and Trumps margin grew further. Living here in Arizona, it was ludicrous for anyone to think that Hillary stood a chance of winning the state.

Michigan has not changed on the CNN page, though, and I checked a few of the others close ones; no changes.

So the bottom line is that, in all of the states that Clinton won, and all of the states that Trump won, except for Michigan and Wisconsin, Jill Stein's votes did not make a difference in the results. In those two states, if the Stein votes were somehow miraculously given to Hillary, giving her 26 more electoral votes, her grand total would be 258...well short of the necessary 270. Case closed.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X