Talk:2016 United States presidential election/Archive 23

Three options for a future RFC
If we are going to turn this into a marathon, start stockpiling your opinions below these three.Cards84664 (talk) 01:39, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Cards84664 (talk) 02:41, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

You know what? I think the middle choice is the best.
 * Middle, or bottom. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 08:59, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The middle one looks best to me. Good photo of Trump, and less than a year since the election is fine. Both smiling. And zooming it to the same level as Clinton is a good idea too, so it's not "official photo" vs "informal photo". Oppose the bottom one, because the pic of Clinton is very old. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 11:43, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Middle for reasons I listed previously. 70.44.154.16 (talk) 22:54, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20161012075355/http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/elections/2016/gen/candidates.xlsx to http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/elections/2016/gen/candidates.xlsx
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Key Controversies Overlooked?
I know that there is much already embedded in this page and so concision is necessary. However, the page does mention several of Hillary Clinton's controversial policies or even simply platform issues but does not mention an equal amount of some of Donald Trump's more controversial issues or statements which contributed to a significant amount of election-time discussion. It might be a good idea to add some for balance's sake. I have drafted up an additional few sentences to add both about his statements on Islam and Muslims during the election which caused a lot of conversation (as an example), but also have found a study put out by a think tank that makes a connection between such statements and the low percentage of Muslims that voted for Trump mentioned in the voter statistics on the page. I think including such a study will help that mentioned statistic seem less... random... so to speak.

Is there a way for me to leave those edits? I have citations and everything ready to go. Or should I simply share them here and hope that a more experienced editor can or could add them in?

Let me know what you think!

Isabelle P (talk) 06:50, 16 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Trump outperformed Romney and McCain among Muslims. Bomberswarm2 (talk) 11:08, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Bush lost the Muslims in 2004 because of his Middle East policy. Incidentally, Trump also increased votes among blacks and Latinos.  TFD (talk) 19:37, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 December 2017
This page states: "Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." and sites as reference for this assertion 11: "Intelligence Report on Russian Hacking". The New York Times. January 6, 2017. p. 11. Retrieved January 8, 2017.

However this assertion is not an actual fact as proven by "Because intelligence community procedures on drafting this type of analysis were not followed and it reflected the views of only three intelligence agencies – not all 17 as the mainstream media claimed. The New York Times was forced to publish a correction on this point last June."

In conclusion the Russian hacking was not necessarily to denigrate Clinton, nor to get Trump elected. It was merely to undermine the entire process. 2601:281:C400:7033:5E1:1206:D356:AAD3 (talk) 15:22, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Also, you have taken this out of context. It is a direct quote from the intelligence report -- not an opinion by The New York Times.

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Indiana Percentages Are Wrong
Dividing Indiana's votes for Clinton and Trump by the total votes from the state on the right don't equal the percentages the table says. EvanJ35 (talk) 17:44, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Grammar Fixing
Between the words "Wisconsin" and "Maine's 2nd Congressional District", replace the word "and" with the words "as well as". Please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2018‎ 2601:401:c400:357:ac66:5c2e:65e7:a1dd (talk) 02:30, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The preceding sentence reads "Six states plus a portion of Maine that Obama won in 2012 switched to Trump." The list following correctly enumerates six states and a Maine Congressional district.  The word "and" is appropriately used. There is no grammar correction needed.  General Ization  Talk  02:33, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Full results
Can someone please put the full results somewhere on the page? I want to see how many votes the very minor parties got, and it only shows the full biggest currently. Alex of Canada (talk) 18:22, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

What I meant to say
For grammar fixing, what I meant to say is that between the words "Wisconsin" and "Maine's 2nd congressional district" in the second INTRO paragraph at the TOP of the article's page, replace the word "and" with the words "as well as". Please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:401:C400:357:F4FD:ED7E:77EC:7F67 (talk) 23:20, 15 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done I split it into another sentence; I think it reads better that way.  Anon 126   (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 00:03, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 February 2018
In External links, the Dmoz template should be updated to use Regional/North_America/United_States/Government/Elections/President/2016 because it's a past election. The result should look like 174.197.3.29 (talk) 17:24, 4 February 2018 (UTC) 174.197.3.29 (talk) 17:24, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done  Anon 126   (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 00:04, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 February 2018
Can you please add a fact about this election? The fact is that this election was the first time since 1988 that Wisconsin didn’t vote the same as Illinois. 2601:401:C400:357:4141:983E:2CF6:25B0 (talk) 22:06, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: I don't see how this improves the entry in any way, but someone else can reopen if they feel otherwise.  JTP (talk • contribs) 04:33, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Reclosing a second time. Unremarkable trivia.  -- Jayron 32 03:54, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: It's mere trivia, and not informative. The fact that two states voted alike in seven consecutive elections is not particularly important. With fifty states, and 1250 ways of pairing them up, there are bound to be short strings of similar voting patterns such as this. TJRC (talk) 03:59, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Why is this comment in the intro?
"In February 2018, the former director of the CIA admits that America is also influencing elections abroad."

If you actually follow the linked source, no such thing actually happened. An ex-CIA director merely speculated on a Fox News show that America "probably" interferes with elections to stop "communists," and his phrasing implies that even this speculative event, if it occurred at all, only occurred in the past and is not ongoing. This is not a valid source that in any way backs up the claim in the article, and moreover it is irrelevant because even if the claim were true it is 100% immaterial to the subject of the article. Moreover, the poor grammar of this sentence, along with the fact that it is a textbook example of a "whataboutism" conveniently tacked on to a section about Russian interference in this election, leads me to believe it was most likely written by a Russian operative. This frankly should be removed from the article entirely, and it certainly should until a far better, non-speculative source with actual backing is cited and justification is provided for its inclusion in the article at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.67.208.171 (talk) 09:00, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I do not understand you, the claim is true and is very related to the all these accusations stated in the intro. In my opinion, this whole long text with the speculations should be moved below to some controversies paragraph, this do not belong to intro at all. Anyway, what more non-speculative source do you want? You can choose: 1, 2, 3, 4. Jirka.h23 (talk) 10:28, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't doubt that you don't understand me, as you are clearly not a native English speaker because your grammar is also poor. "This do not belong to intro at all" and "admits in Feburary 2018" are both dead giveaways, comrade. You have failed to master basic verb tenses, as well as the definitive article. Whoever taught you English at the Russian bot factory should be fired. Moreover, none of those sources (one of which is RUSSIA TODAY -- a LITERAL Russian propaganda outlet!) solve the underlying problem, which is that his comments themselves are not definitive, only speculative and vague. I don't doubt that he said them, but what he said does not in any way actually prove the claim in the article (his speculation does not suffice for an "admission" and moreover he alone is not an authoritative source) and moreover it is not material to the article. It is merely a whataboutism -- you know, a classic RUSSIAN propaganda technique. You see, whether or not Americans may or may not have interfered in elections in the past has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Russians interfered in our election in 2016. And since the US election of 2016 is the subject of this article, interference in that election is the only election interference that is objectively relevant to the article. This is like putting "Soviets raped millions of German women" at the end of a paragraph about Nazi atrocities in the USSR. Something tells me you wouldn't like that... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.67.208.171 (talk) 09:38, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I see that you're a newbe, so I take into the account that you do not know, how things work around here and I abide the Please do not bite the newcomers rule. So please firstly learn the basic rules: Assume good faith and No personal attacks. Jirka.h23 (talk) 13:12, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I concur with the IP that this sentence does not belong in the lede of this article. Assuming it can be properly sourced, it may belong at Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections (and may already be there). The statement (about the US government's policies and actions concerning foreign elections) has no direct relevance to the 2016 United States presidential election in particular. It is only there as a coatrack.  General Ization Talk  13:25, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Please read for example: 1, which prove that this belong here as an direct response to these accusations and is relevant to this article. Btw. I still think that this whole text belong to the paragraph with controversies, it is highly speculative, what do you say?Jirka.h23 (talk) 13:44, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It is relevant to this article that Russia may have interfered in the 2016 US election, and it is relevant that Trump denies it. Please explain how it is relevant to this article that US intelligence may have interfered in past elections outside the US.  The link you provided supports the latter claim, but does not make any claim that supports the notion that it should appear in this article. Nor does it discredit the former claims, though its placement in the lede here seems to be designed to do so.  General Ization  Talk  13:49, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I hope that our common goal is to have here the most neutrally structured article. We're not here to judge something, both views of all sides should be taken into account in the dispute. When A is spoken, B must be said. This statement is an outcome of the discussion of this whole case. Just like any other statements on this article.Jirka.h23 (talk) 14:05, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Whatever that means. Could you try to answer my question?  How exactly do you think that the claims about US interference in foreign elections are relevant to an article about the 2016 US election? The point is that claims about US government actions in foreign elections are not a "side" in the discussion of Russian involvement in ours in 2016. "B" should not be spoken in an article about "A" unless its relevance to "A" can be shown.  General Ization  <i style="color: #000666;">Talk </i> 14:08, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, your edit summary ("moving this highly speculative hoax from intro below to related paragraph") belies your claim that what you are trying to achieve is neutrality.  Your position is clearly not neutral, and you are obviously trying to use the claims of past US interference to discredit the claims of Russian interference by implication. <span style="font-family: Gill Sans MT, Arial, Helvetica; font-weight:140;"> General Ization  <i style="color: #000666;">Talk </i> 14:21, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I have already answered to you above. All of these sources directly mention the 2016 US election and are directly connencted to the case. 1, 2. Therefore it is also obvious to include these related claims to the related article. If you want we can change the text to: "But critics might point out the U.S. has done similar things." and that the former director of the CIA confirmed this - as sourced. Can you please also answer me what do think about moving this speculative text to paragraph about controversies, as common practice? Jirka.h23 (talk) 14:29, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * At this point it should be sufficient to point out that the IP, and I have all rejected your edits, indicating that the consensus is against the changes you are trying to make.  (I'd appreciate it if Khajidha could actually join this conversation, so that consensus can be clearly shown.)  Since you are now at WP:3RR, I'd suggest that you leave it alone. <span style="font-family: Gill Sans MT, Arial, Helvetica; font-weight:140;"> General Ization  <i style="color: #000666;">Talk </i> 14:36, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I assumed my reference to this conversation in an edit summary was sufficient proof of that. --Khajidha (talk) 14:39, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Sort of, but not really. Edit summaries are not a substitute for discussion in a contentious dispute. <span style="font-family: Gill Sans MT, Arial, Helvetica; font-weight:140;"> General Ization <i style="color: #000666;">Talk </i> 14:41, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Khajidha did not even try to talk (explain and answer on my doubts here at talk). However, I am still waiting for your answer to previous post. It is very clear that the text is related. Jirka.h23 (talk) 14:43, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Related is not necessarily relevant. Something that happened in some other election, in some other place, at some other time is not relevant to what happened in this particular election. --Khajidha (talk) 14:49, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Your argument is the equivalent of a child saying "but so-and-so did the same thing yesterday". --Khajidha (talk) 14:51, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Argument is not of some children but of the critics - as sourced. Claims are sourced and relevant, because they are directly related and refer to the article.Jirka.h23 (talk) 14:59, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not talking about what the sources say, I'm talking about your argument for including this here. As an illustration, the fact that many people have committed a crime is not relevant to a discussion about one person, committing one crime, at one time. Putting this here on this page is like going to the Jack the Ripper page and putting in a sentence saying "well, there have been other serial killers so what's the big deal about this one?" --Khajidha (talk) 15:19, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I think that your analogy is misleading. Jack the Ripper did not know other murderers, these countries, of course, know of themselves and interfered in their affairs. We can have a better example; if someone killed many sons of the many people, and someones father killed also the killer son, obviously it should be mentioned it this case that the killer killed also his son. - Yeltsin in 1996 1. Jirka.h23 (talk) 14:39, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Your example doesn't fit this situation. There is no "son". US actions in other elevtoons are not relevant to this election. To continue the analogy Jack the Ripper is irrelevant to Jeffrey Dahmer. --Khajidha (talk) 15:08, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems that you did not understand the text above (or you have not even tried it). Simply, if would Jack the Ripper kill Jeffrey Dahmers son, and so then did he, the cases were then related and this should be mentioned also in the second case. Jirka.h23 (talk) 15:30, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The only reason the second act would be relevant to the article about the first is if it was stated that the second was in retaliation for the first. None of the sources you link to says that Russia interfered with the US election in retaliation to US interference in other elections. They only state that the US has interfered and that Russia has interfered. Without that linkage of motivation, these are just two unrelated things. --Khajidha (talk) 15:46, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, you seem to be confused ("Claims are sourced and relevant, because they are directly related and refer to the article"). Just because a source mentions the 2016 US election doesn't mean its claims must or should be mentioned here at United States presidential election, 2016. This article is not a dumping ground for everything that might be tangentially related to its topic. <span style="font-family: Gill Sans MT, Arial, Helvetica; font-weight:140;"> General Ization  <i style="color: #000666;">Talk </i> 15:28, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I do not mean that this must be mentioned here, I'm just saying it should be (in my opinion), as relevant and important outcome of the discussion on the matter. So express yourself, where are the boundaries of what should be, and what should not be mentioned, if the source mentions an article. What is your position? Do you think that the argument is too little important? Jirka.h23 (talk) 14:39, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The boundary is relevance. This has been explained numerous times. Any instances of US interference in other countries' elections are relevant to the articles about those elections and to articles about the general topic of election interference. They are not relevant here. --Khajidha (talk) 15:13, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Trump's use of "fake news" is more aligned with the Lügenpresse article
At the end of the introduction, it's stated "Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized these intelligence claims, citing a lack of evidence and repeatedly calling the claims a "hoax" and "fake news."" Even though the wording used is "fake news", Trump's usage does not correspond to what the linked "fake news" article describes, but rather to Lügenpresse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.18.99.73 (talk) 03:36, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 March 2018
Could you please fix the third paragraph at the top of the page, saying that MI, PA, WI, and ME-CO2 all haven’t voted Republican since the 1980s? Please. 107.4.8.129 (talk) 18:20, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Not necessary. The link in that same sentence to the Blue wall (politics) article explains the significance and voting history better than an awkward parenthetical could.  Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:30, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Cambridge Analytica
Recently there were two attempts to add massive information about Cambridge Analytica to this article. Both were reverted. I have posted on the user's talk page to explain about the Discretionary Sanctions. It could be argued to have a sentence or two at this article about the revelations, but that really isn't the way this article is structured and I would recommend no mention at all. --MelanieN (talk) 04:32, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree. Probably better for the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections article, if it's not already there. Dave Dial (talk) 13:59, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Richard nixon
anything here about the parallel to 1972?75.171.91.117 (talk) 21:08, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Inconsistent voting totals?
At the top of the page in the info box, Trump and Clinton's voting totals are listed as 62,984,825 and 65,853,516, respectively. But in the candidate results table, their totals are listed as 62,985,134 and 64,853,652. Is this an error or am I missing something? PlanetDeadwing (talk) 12:17, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The infobox numbers are the correct ones. They're sourced from the official Federal Election Commission results at . The numbers in the results table come from an unofficial source, Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections . It looks like Leip calculated his numbers from his assessment of state-reported results. I think the table should be recast using the FEC official figures. This would result in losing things like the breakout of Colin POwell's write-in votes, for example, because the FEC just lumps them into "Write-In (Miscellaneous)", but I think that's a good trade. If someone wants to break out individual write-in candidates in text following the table maybe citing to Leip, that would be okay.
 * I'm not so good with tables, so this would take me a while to do, and I'm going to be offline for a week or so; and I'm reluctant to make such a sweeping change without consensus just before I take off. If no one has addressed this or objected by the end of next week, I'll try to take a stab at it. TJRC (talk) 05:27, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

PlanetDeadwing seems to have messed this up further before TJRC could take a stab at it. Now the candidate results table is a mix of FEC and Dave Leip. The numbers do NOT add up! 68.4.94.186 (talk) 04:48, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Deez Nuts?
Should he be added? This is not a joke. Blackdiamand (talk) 16:18, 6 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Where are you suggesting he be added to this article? And what about him are you suggesting be added? SecretName101 (talk) 14:30, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * We can't add Deez Nuts to the article unless we have a source on how many votes they got in the general election. Apparently it wasn't enough to get into the official PDF containing the results, unless I missed it. Brendon the Wizard  ✉️ ✨ 00:58, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Problematic expressions section
I have several issues with the current "Notable expressions, phrases, and statements" sections and I believe it should be removed from this article, but I thought I'd give other editors an opportunity to voice their thoughts. In all honestly, I am disappointed that it was even necessary to take this to the talk page per the policy violations outlined below.

This is the original version:


 * Basket of deplorables – a controversial phrase coined by Hillary Clinton to describe Trump's supporters
 * Build that wall / Mexico will pay for the wall – Trump's campaign promise that if elected he will build a wall on the border between the US and Mexico, with Mexico financing the project
 * Birdie Sanders – after a campaign stop in Portland, Oregon, a white-winged two-barred crossbill landed on Sanders's podium while he was addressing a large crowd of supporters.
 * Drain the swamp – A phrase Donald Trump invoked late in the campaign to describe what needs to be done to fix problems in the federal government. Trump acknowledged that the phrase was suggested to him, and he was initially skeptical about using it
 * Fake News – stories that are untrue. Trump has used the expression to refer to stories that he does not like.
 * Feel the Bern – a phrase chanted by supporters of the Bernie Sanders campaign which was officially adopted by his campaign.
 * Grab them by the pussy – a remark made by Trump in a 2005 private conversation which was recorded by a hot mic and released during the campaign. By saying this remark, Trump intended to boast how as a celebrity he can do things (namely grab women by their genitalia) that non-celebrities cannot.
 * I like people who weren't captured - Trump mocking of John McCain's service during the Vietnam War when he was captured and became a POW
 * I'm with her – Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan
 * Make America great again – Trump's campaign slogan
 * Trump's use of derogatory nicknames to deride his opponents – These include "Crooked Hillary", "Little Marco", "Low energy Jeb", and "Lying Ted"
 * Small hands – Marco Rubio saying that the size of Trump's hands is proportional to the size of his penis.
 * What is Aleppo? – Uttered by Gary Johnson during an interview when questioned about the status of Aleppo in Syria.

All of these are memorable to some degree, but the largest problem with this list is how it is a trivia section in an encyclopedia where what constitutes notability becomes subjective and sources for them would exist more as day-to-day political drama news that WP:NOTNEWS does not support. This very literally just a list of sound bites.

As-is, it's very easy to think of random phrases that I could add if I wanted to. For example:
 * Donald Trump's "total and complete shutdown of Muslims" quote became very controversial
 * Bernie Sanders spoke ad-nauseum about the "hand-full of billionaires."
 * When Donald Trump said "bomb the shit out of them!" it received attention from several outlets.
 * Hillary Clinton regularly said "Stronger Together!" and "Break down the barriers!" in her speeches.
 * Jill Stein supporters used "Jill, not Hill" as a de-facto campaign slogan.
 * The time Hillary Clinton uttered "Pokemon go to the polls" received coverage akin to Gary Johnson's "What is Aleppo?"
 * I found about a dozen articles on the time Donald Trump called Bernie Sanders a "socialist slash communist."

If you were to tell me that these are just loosely connected, unimportant, unencyclopedic, trivial sound bites that blatantly and obviously violate WP:NOTNEWS, you'd be absolutely correct.

That's essentially what this section is; even the phrases that gathered enough RS sources to pass GNG and gain their own articles shouldn't be assembled into a random list of sound bite trivia because it gives undue weight to a very minor part of the article covering the election itself. This section is highly problematic and should be removed.

TL;DR: Remove section per WP:NOTNEWS and WP:UNDUE. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 01:19, 7 April 2018 (UTC)


 * While I understand that some of these expressions may be construed as mere "sound bites", I do not support wholesale deletion of longstanding and well-sourced material. Some of these expressions have become embedded in everyday language, and are still resonating well after the campaign has ended. I will restore the contents, except for "Birdie Sanders" which is truly anecdotal and "Small hands" which is derogatory. I'm on the fence regarding "What is Aleppo?" (anecdotal yet shocking, funny and seriously appalling coming from a presidential candidate.) Feel free to seek consensus to remove others, preferably one at a time. — JFG talk 20:15, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I guess I don't quite follow why "anecdotal" and "derogatory" mean "non-encyclopedic". The only question that needs to be addressed is are the expressions notable? If the answer is yes, then they should be included. BarbadosKen (talk) 04:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * They pass WP:GNG as I previously mentioned; my issue is with WP:NOTNEWS (as they fell under the umbrella of routine, day-to-day coverage) and WP:UNDUE (though this doesn't carry enough weight to violate WP:COAT, it does provide undue weight to very minor anecdotes). BrendonTheWizard (talk) 14:49, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Strongly agree with removal. This is quite literally a trivia section, and we don't do trivia sections here. <i style="color: green; font-family: Mistral;">Toa</i> <i style="color: green; font-family: Mistral;">Nidhiki05</i> 17:28, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree that this section is in any way trivia. Slogans, even if they are sound bites, are part of the campaign. It is certainly encyclopedic to document what notable slogans and expressions were used. The 2016 campaign had a much higher quantity of such notable slogans because of the nature of the personalities involved in the campaign.
 * A section for notable expressions, and phrases exists for many articles of US presidential campaigns that occurred in the last 30 years. BarbadosKen (talk) 04:02, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * In response to both Toa Nidhiki05 and BarbadosKen - While I more often than not agree that arguing that a certain section or article has its place on Wikipedia due to well-established practices is not a violation of WP:OSE, in this case it actually does appear to be an OSE argument that I don't find to be valid; I personally believe that many of the identical sections from other presidential election articles should be reduced if not removed (such as the bullet-point on the 2012 article that simply states that at some point Joe Biden used the word "malarkey" which is a real word; this doesn't even pass GNG unlike many of the others) and due to similar problems arising in these other examples I don't think it's accurate to consider the fact that other examples exist to be a valid argument for why they should continue to. I wouldn't go as far as to say that there's no place on Wikipedia for these phrases and expressions; but I'd prefer that the expressions mentioned are significant enough to the actual topic (the presidential election itself) that we could put them into the prose rather than a list. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 14:49, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If there is a general agreement that the material meets WP:GNC, I'm not quite clear what's the point of this discussion.
 * Nonetheless, I should clarify what I previously wrote in order to make sure that it is clear that I was not making an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument. The argument that I was trying to make is that the list for this election is longer than the lists for the other elections is "because of the nature of the personalities involved in the campaign". Counting which phrases/expressions belong to which candidate instantly shows that it was Trump who generated a lot more than the usual amount of notable expressions. I think it is the length of the list that makes it seem like trivia, not the items on the list. However, there is a legitimate reason why this list list is longer than the lists for other recent elections. BarbadosKen (talk) 04:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I would like to respectfully remind you that notability is not the sole guideline for Wikipedia content. Throughout this discussion I have stated that while there is not a GNG problem for several of these items (particularly those that have their own articles), there is a NOTNEWS and UNDUE problem per the reasons I have stated. While I certainly agree that the 2016 election had quite a lot of sound bites more audacious and shocking than previous years, I still maintain the concerns that I have addressed as explaining Trump's personalities doesn't exactly address the concerns I've mentioned thus far. BrendonTheWizard (talk) 13:36, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I have addressed the WP:UNDUE concern by explaining why this list is longer than the lists for other recent US presidential elections.
 * As for the WP:NOTNEWS concern, I can address it on two levels. First, WP:NOTNEWS refers to routine news coverage such as the weather, sports, traffic, etc. Second, you can see that the references are from time periods beyond when the phrase was said. For example, the reference for the "I like people who weren't captured" is from 2017, two years after the quote was said. That definitely means that your WP:NOTNEWS concern has no merit.
 * BarbadosKen (talk) 17:58, 12 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Belated comment, but this section continues to be problematic. Birdie Sanders is back, as well as a statement from Trump which I don't remember receiving significant coverage. I'm starting to consider boldly removing "What is Aleppo?" but I'm also still concerned with this section as a whole. I think when Trump said he "met with the President of the Virgin Islands" that surpassed even "What is Aleppo?" but much like the Aleppo quote it was quickly forgotten as part of routine news, and for this same reason I continue to argue that WP:NOTNEWS is a problem here. I understand that the example I cited was a quote from after the election, but I've cited a number of similar examples in the first post. To exemplify just how volatile this section has changed without any discussion or objective rationale, not only was Birdie Sanders added back, but "I like people who weren't captured" - which BarbadosKen cited as an example of why we should keep the section - was removed. The "notable expressions" section is certainly a practice that I'd like to be discontinued. Brendon the Wizard  ✉️ ✨ 01:13, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Sixth election out of the last seven in which the GOP has lost the popular vote
The video I have provided a link to mentions (at approximately 2:55) a very interesting tidbit that might merit inclusion in the article in some form. It is unprecedented that one of America's major political parties has lost the popular vote in six out of seven consecutive elections, as the Republican Party has now done. Since 1992, the Republicans have only once carried the popular vote in a presidential election (2004). SecretName101 (talk) 04:09, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I looked at all US elections to judge this claim myself.
 * This is true. It is (counting Washington as a win for the Federalists) impossible to select any other seven consecutive US presidential elections in which any major party lost the popular vote.
 * The second-greatest number of times that a major party has lost the popular vote out of seven consecutive elections would be five times.
 * Between 1932 and 1948 and Republican Party lost the popular vote in 5 consecutive elections. (They had won it in the 3 elections that preceeded this, and in the next 2 elections that followed this)
 * Between 1860 and 1880, the Democrats also lost the popular vote in 5 consecutive elections (arguably only 4, as in 1860 the party failed to run a unified national ticket and the combined popular vote of the Northern Democratic and Southern Democratic tickets was greater than Lincoln). (they had won it in the two elections that preceeded this, and in 2 of the next 3 elections that followed this) SecretName101 (talk) 14:21, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * A YouTube video? Why not an article? If I'm not mistaken, there have been only five elections when the president lost the popular vote. If you're referring to the congressional elections, you're on the wrong article. This is not a forum so I'd like to know what you'd like to see changed. Brendon the Wizard  ✉️ ✨ 01:23, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you misread this. The assertion isn't that one party lost the popular vote and won the Presidency (6 of 7), but that one party lost the popular vote 6 of 7 times (and may or may have won the Presidency). Given that the Electoral collge (in most cases) is the deciding criteria, I'm not sure why the observation is notable.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  18:07, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
 * And the Democrats have only won a majority of the vote in a presidential election 4 times since Roosevelt was president. (Roosevelt won a majority of the vote in 4 consecutive elections.) The problem with this type of trivia is that it implies relative strength or weakness of the two parties without any analysis. TFD (talk) 23:30, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Need to insert the following
Title: U.S. Department of Homeland Security meddling in 2016 Presidential Elections

Body of edit: The U.S. Homeland Security Agency was caught trying to infiltrate the State of Georgia's election voter database ten times over ten months, including a massive cyber attack on November 15th. The hacking attempts were admitted by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, but the explanation was unsatisfactory to Georgia election officials. Given that attempting to gain access to protected systems violates federal law, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp fired a letter to DHS asking who authorized the hack and whether other States had been hacked as well. Secretary Kemp wrote a letter to President-elect Trump demanding an investigation. Of special note is that Georgia was one of the few States which had not accepted so called "cyber hygiene scans" or "penetration tests" from the DHS. The DHS had been warning of "foreign interference" in their pitch to have states participate in its push to "help states secure election systems against possible hacking".

Reference: [1]

You cant make this stuff up!

71.221.136.186 (talk) 17:51, 15 August 2018 (UTC)


 * A blog post written by Tyler Durden does not meet Wikipedia's standards for reliability.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  17:56, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Russia succeeded in swaying election
Seems James Clapper's May 2018 would fit here (or where?). 204.38.4.80 (talk) 23:56, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Russia ‘turned’ election for Trump, Clapper believes
 * Comment:: While the concept of Russia's influence in the election is being investigated by a Special Counsel, it has not yet been categorically proven that this was the case, nor has there been any solid proof that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to sway the election in his favor. There is strong evidence to that effect, but in the US, one is innocent until proven guilty. For that reason, until the investigation is concluded and establishes that Russia did successfully sway the election, then we as Wikipedia editors must go on what has been verified by reliable sources. Hope this information is helpful to you. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:59, 9 June 2018 (UTC)


 * If in america one is innocent until proven guilty. Shouldn't we not add it until it HAS been proven? Just a question. Chris Roe234 (talk) 20:08, 7 October 2018 (UTC)


 * This is not a criminal trial (civil trials only require a preponderance of evidence, BTW). Depending on your view of the U.S. intelligence services, this is highly credible. To eliminate such information that is clearly pertinent to this article would be censorship & would violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. Peaceray (talk) 20:25, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

The Recount and Russia
After a recount requested by the green party, they found out that a lot of Clinton's voters were long dead, enough to make her actually LOSE the popular vote. Also we can't put that they concluded the Russia situation without any hard evidence. Donald Trump would be innocent of this crime until he is proven guilty. Chris Roe234 (talk) 20:37, 7 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Your statement about Clinton losing the election requires verification from a reliable source. Otherwise you are just "whistling Dixie". Peaceray (talk) 20:44, 7 October 2018 (UTC)


 * User:Chris Roe234 — What is this from? There was CBS David Goldstein report of hundreds of dead people voting in LA, and many reports of the Green recount in Michigan failing re half of Detroit votes may be ineligible (Detroit news) or just too many votes (NYpost, Detroit news, Snopes), or Fox News reports on double-voting or even triple-voting.  And there is the observation that enough people who voted were illegals to exceed the 3.5 million, or that the discrepancies re inactive rolls exceed 3.5 million. But none of those seem to be this one.  This is perhaps more for the 2016 United States presidential election recounts article than for here anyway, but ... have to see more to tell.  Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:41, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * User:Chris Roe234, stop reading unreliable sources and their conspiracy theories. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 23:03, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

What would a "narrow" voting result be?
Since this is being implicitly asked by some recent edits, I'll throw one definition out there: the WP article List of close election results considers "close" to be "within 0.1%". (Is "narrow" closer or wider than "close"? I would have thought closer, but this is all obviously quite subjective.)

Since we're lacking a canonical definition, I would say leave "narrow" out. The number itself is the most objective descriptor.--NapoliRoma (talk) 23:10, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Moving the page
This page needs to be moved to 2016 United States presidential election to reflect the closure of this RFC on election/referendum naming conventions. IntoThinAir (talk) 20:08, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, there's a bot suppose to be going around making these changes. GoodDay (talk) 20:42, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Photo
Which photo should be used; the one existed before the election, or the one after? Flix11 (talk) 03:00, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

The intro section is simply too long
What the title says. It looks like it's twice as long as the 2008 Election page intro, which was already long to begin with. No other wiki page on US Presidential Elections is that long, and for good reason. Heck, it even looks like it's longer than the United States own page intro! And IMO, even while the controversial and recent nature of the election means it should be explored in detail, there is no reason why it should be that long. And I believe we should take some measures to shorten in.

For example, in the first paragraph, it adds this sentence: "Concurrent with the presidential election, Senate, House, and many gubernatorial and state and local elections were also held on November 8." No other US Presidential Election article has this because it's not necessary to put that info there.

The second paragraph is very long, but unfortunately, it mostly conatains info that the reader should know about the candidates. IMO, it should cut naming the candidates Trump defeated since the field contained a lot of candidates. Maybe it should only say something among the lines of "Trump emerged as the front-runner, defeating a large multi-candidate field." I'd argue the paragraph could use some better wording to shorten it.

The the third paragraph is problematic, almost in its entirety. "Voters selected members of the Electoral College in each state, in most cases by "winner-takes-all" plurality; those state electors in turn voted for a new president and vice president on December 19, 2016.[a]" This section needs to be removed completely. The reader doesn't need and immediate reminder on how the EC works in the intro. The next section says: "While Clinton received over 2.8 million more votes nationwide, a margin of 2.1%, Trump won 30 states with a total of 306 electors, or 57% of the 538 available." Maybe we should remove Trump's % of the EV, since it's never really that relevant, and it's never mentioned in any of the other articles intros. The following section states "He won two perennial swing states which typically decide an election, in Florida and Ohio. Trump also won three "blue wall" stronghold states that had not gone Republican since the 1980s: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He also won Maine's 2nd congressional district, which had also not been won by a Republican presidential candidate since 1988." There's already a section that details the results below. Stating how some states hadn't been won by a party since the year xxxx only serves to clutter the intro.

The fourth paragraph is a mess. "In the Electoral College vote on December 19, seven electors voted against their pledged candidates: two against Trump and five against Clinton. A further three electors attempted to vote against Clinton but were replaced or forced to vote again. Ultimately, Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton garnered 227, while Colin Powell won three, and John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Faith Spotted Eagle each received one." This is simply too long and irrelevant to the intro. Just say that there were 7 faithless electors, 2 defected Trump and 5 defected Hillary. Done, that's it. There is a section below that goes in detail of faithless electors. "He is the first president without any prior experience in public service or the military, as well as the wealthiest and the oldest at inauguration, while Clinton was the first woman to be the presidential nominee of a major American party and the first woman to win the popular vote. Clinton's popular vote margin of 2.8 million votes was the largest ever by a candidate who lost the electoral college.[17]" I'd argue that given how long the intro is, this doesn't need to go here. Maybe in each other candidate's articles or below, but it's unnecessary to keep dragging the intro just to establish some trivia about the candidates.

Finally, the fifth paragraph is just too detailed for the intro. This isn't a news section, there is already a section in the article below, and a complete article that details the Russian involvement in the election, and that one is incredibly extensive. Shortening it to something along the lines of "There is an ongoing controversy over the involvement of the Russian government to influence the outcome of the election", give or take a few words, should be enough for the intro.

I know there's bound to be controversy for this, but I keep watching the intro grow more and more, without a justified reason, and while being rather poorly constructed. I hope we can reach a consensus on how we can fix this issue.

--yeah_93 (talk) 22:54, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree with most of this. I originally added most of the second paragraph (it hasn't changed much since then) - my intent was to model it on the way other presidential election articles describe the main themes and events, and I copied some relevant stuff from the respective Trump and Clinton campaign pages. But I agree it could probably benefit from trimming. If no one else responds soon, I think I'll go ahead and boldly make some of the other suggested changes, or at least the ones that I think will be least contentious. -Avial Cloffprunker (talk) 06:41, 28 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Update: I've done my best to trim the intro to a more reasonable length. -Avial Cloffprunker (talk) 09:47, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Mismatched sources for lead paragraph
I rearranged a couple things in the lead section since the sources didn't match up with the content. The sentence 'President Trump repeatedly criticized these intelligence claims, citing a lack of evidence and calling the issue a "hoax" and "fake news"' had 3 sources. The first cited Trump calling it a hoax and fake news. This one is fine because that's what the sentence said. The second cited the lack of evidence for collusion between Trump and Russia, not interference from the Russian government. I split the sentence into two for this one since the article only mentioned that there isn't evidence of collusion. As it was written previously, it was implied that there is no evidence for interference, which is contrary to the sources and false. The third source confirmed the FBI investigation into these matters, which wasn't part of the sentence at all, so I moved this source to the sentence that did mention the FBI investigation. As for the sources citing the FBI investigation, I would personally recommend keeping only the NYT source, but I didn't want to remove a source without consensus on such a high-profile article. I also changed <Trump criticized these claims> with <Trump criticized these conclusions> since that was the language used earlier in the article, and also because it is more precise language.  pluma  ♫ '''♯ 01:29, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Popular vote in the second sentence
Every now and then, the phrase "despite losing the popular vote" gets deleted for being irrelevant/redundant, and then promptly gets added back in. I didn't find any discussion of this in recent talk pages, so I thought I'd bring it up to see if there's any consensus. I can see both sides of the argument, but for the sake of consistency, I'll point out that the pages for the other US presidential elections where the winner lost the popular vote mention that fact in the first paragraph. -Avial Cloffprunker (talk) 05:19, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

"Fake news" as a notable expression Trump has used to refer to stories he dislikes.
Trump only started using the them "fake news" to refer to stories he dislikes after the election was over. In fact, the term "fake news" only started becoming important in american political parlance after the 2016 election, as show by the google search trends for "fake news". For The (almost) complete history of 'fake news', see this BBC article which I summarise below

While fake news was prevalent during the 2016 US presidential election, it was not much of a concern until after the election was over, when CNN and other news outlets started publishing sotries on how it might have influenced the result of the election. In december 2016, Hillary Clinton denounced fake news as an epidemic with real world consequences The 2016 source linked in the article is similar to these 4 stories: it talks about fake news as "made-up stuff, masterfully manipulated to look like credible journalistic reports that are easily spread online to large audiences willing to believe the fictions and spread the word." The source does not, however, talk of Trump's use of the term, nor how he twists the meaning of the word to include all stories he dislikes. This, however, started happening only after the original coverage on fake news. Trump took it a step further in january 2017, when he told a CNN reporter "you are fake news". Around the same time he started repeating the phrase on Twitter. In short, the term, first used to question the legitimacy of Donald Trump's victory, was subsequently appropriated by Trump in 2017 to deride his critics.

As such, it cannot be said that it is a "Notable expression, phrase, or statement" from the 2016 presidential election, the way it is currently descrbed in the article. As no RS can demonstrate the contrary, I removed it from the article.Emass100 (talk) 03:41, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Results table sorting
The results table currently sorts by electoral vote, which is fine in the sense that Trump appears before Clinton. However, this leads to the faithless elector "candidates" appearing in front of candidates who Actually Ran and were trying to win. The faithless electors are basically trivia - there's no guarantee that the people they voted for would even have accepted had they somehow won. I'd be in favor of sorting by pledged electoral votes first, then popular vote, which would have the correct effect of pushing Powell / Paul / etc. to the bottom. Any thoughts? SnowFire (talk) 15:30, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Kasich term of governor
John Kasich is no longer governor of Ohio. Could someone please update the page to indicate that his term ended in 2019? Old text: present New text: 2019

4.14.74.76 (talk) 19:15, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done DannyS712 (talk) 20:05, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

KKK support of Hillary Clinton
We should add the support of the KKK leader in Hillaty Clinton. on (02:16): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L65RBwrtOeQ&list=LL_-S_5ybbSH4RXETPg8b-7w&index=2 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.142.2.203 (talk) 18:46, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * No.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  18:52, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * No way. In an anonymous videotape, the leader of a ragtag band of 20 protesters (wearing a Grand Dragon patch on his shirt, but if he's "the Grand Dragon", so am I) is asked, toward the end of an almost incoherent diatribe, who he likes for president and he says Hillary Clinton. That is almost the definition of unimportant. Not worth mentioning. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia should be objective. That's not Hillary's campaign. Other editors please comment about their madness. There is no reason to hide ot from the public - the KKK leader clearly supports Hillary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.142.2.203 (talk) 19:02, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * He is not "the KKK leader". He is a self-proclaimed leader of a small group of protesters, a person whose name we don't even know, wearing a shirt that says "Grand Dragon." Please read Ku_Klux_Klan_titles_and_vocabulary to see how meaningless that is.-- MelanieN (talk) 19:05, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

The "Telegraph" also reported about it. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/12192975/The-KKK-leader-who-says-he-backs-Hillary-Clinton.html  It worths mentioning, Let's let to other editors take part of this decision. And keep in mind Wikipedia should be objective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.142.2.203 (talk) 19:07, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * One final comment and then I'm outtahere, to let others chime in if they find it worthwhile. Per a little research: The closest thing the KKK has to a recognized leader or spokesman is David Duke, and he strongly endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 Thomas Robb, the current (2016) national director of the Knights of the KKK, endorsed Donald Trump in 2016. Those are the real leaders of the KKK who can actually speak for the KKK. According to your link, this guy initially endorsed Trump, but then changed his mind because he hates David Duke, so he convinced himself that Hillary has a "hidden agenda" that is the opposite of everything she says. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:33, 20 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Note: The IP OP has been generally dropping unsourced suggestions in line with far-right conspiracy theories and may not be here to build an encyclopedia. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:39, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeeeaah... half the Telegraph story is about how this person's statements are probably disingenuous, how they contradict his earlier statements, and how unimportant the current KKK in California is. Most of the rest is basking in the irony of a KKK member being saved by a Jew. This is the 2016 election. There are probably easily tens of millions of sources on this event in all the languages. One news story and a YouTube video about "some dude" in Anaheim who got his ass kicked for being a racist doesn't come even close to meeting WP:DUEWEIGHT.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  13:57, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

i wanted to get information on the 2016. i want to know how many people voted for President Trump...and not about Obama or Clinton,. just President Trump. I feel i can no longer trust Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8807:A640:21D0:1F1:56D1:1848:32F3 (talk) 01:10, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:06, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * En-2016 United States presidential election.ogg

Minor change to Results by State
Long tables should have column labels enough t reduce need for scrolling. I've added labels at the bottom of table. There should also be a horizontal scroll-bar at the top of the table, as well as at the bottom. I don't know how to do that.Septimus.stevens (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

RfC on Spygate
Please be aware of this RfC: Talk:Spygate (conspiracy theory by Donald Trump) – Muboshgu (talk) 03:00, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Mueller Report
“While the Mueller report didn’t incriminate Trump it didn’t exonerate him.” should be added to the Russia investigation section. It has not been made public so we still don’t know what’s in it. The only people who know what’s in it aren’t talking. Sammond11 (talk) 11:39, 26 March 2019 (UTC)


 * At the moment we know the outcome — details of the Russian interference, and no collusion, no obstruction for Trump. This week we will have the bulk of the report released.  And then start (continue) political games.  Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:44, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

New study of social media influence
For those interested. Abstract:

"There is considerable concern about the role that social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, play in promoting misperceptions during political campaigns. These technologies are widely used, and inaccurate information flowing across them has a high profile. This research uses three-wave panel surveys conducted with representative samples of Americans during both the 2012 and 2016 U.S. Presidential elections to assess whether use of social media for political information promoted endorsement of falsehoods about major party candidates or important campaign issues. Fixed effects regression helps ensure that observed effects are not due to individual differences. Results indicate that social media use had a small but significant influence on misperceptions about President Obama in the 2012 election, and that this effect was most pronounced among strong partisans. Social media had no effect on belief accuracy about the Republican candidate in that election. The 2016 survey focused on campaign issues. There is no evidence that social media use influenced belief accuracy about these topics in aggregate, but Facebook users were unique. Social media use by this group reduced issue misperceptions relative to those who only used other social media. These results demonstrate that social media can alter citizens’ willingness to endorse falsehoods during an election, but that the effects are often small."

Saturnalia0 (talk) 23:34, 28 March 2019 (UTC)


 * User:Saturnalia0 - I could wish this article mentioned campaign issues more. And I’ve also read blaming of Twitter and Facebook for setting the background context too ... of interactions being more impulsive and ill-thought messages, negative, trolling, search and feed manipulation filter bubbles, etcetera leading to distrust of media and the polled greatest fear at 2016 being corrupt politicians.  (Before Hillary and Trump even got started...). Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:57, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Curious
I´m curious about double-talk in the USA.

The article tries to sell that the presidential election is the day of the popular vote.

Really, this is not factually true.

The election is done by a small number of individuals on a different date.

But people continue with the propaganda that in the "election date" they elect the president.

Maybe we need to go factual here and change the dates and stress the point that actually the president is elected by 300+ persons?

Milton (talk) 04:25, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Close Elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2016_United_States_presidential_election&oldid=prev&diff=847455492&markasread=139709308&markasreadwiki=enwiki

847398590:

"[The] election hinged … on about 78,000 votes from only three counties in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan."

Source:

"2. Just three counties – Macomb County, MI; York County, PA and Waukesha County, WI – elected Donald Trump. If those three counties had cast zero votes, Trump would have lost all three states and the election. By the same logic, just three counties re-elected President Obama in 2012: Miami-Dade County, FL; Cuyahoga County, OH and Philadelphia, PA." (https://web.archive.org/web/20170715170550/http://cookpolitical.com/story/10201)

There appeared to be selective quoting from a balanced source, so was revised to:

"… on about 78,000 votes from only three counties in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan (by comparison, Obama won in 2012 due to three counties in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania)."

Reverted to revision 847398590 by Asc85: "Not really true."

Is there a source explaining why the Cook Political Report was right about Trump but not Obama?

Posted to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Asc85 11 April 2019 (No response)

Peaceandlonglife (talk) 08:57, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It looks fair to quote the "by the same logic" passage from the source. — JFG talk 13:51, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Done — Peaceandlonglife (talk) 18:32, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Obstruction of justice in the lead
recently added this snippet to the lead section:

I reverted, stating "Allegations of obstruction of justice are not relevant to the election, but to the Trump's administration actions after he was elected." Then re-instated the content, stating "Of course it's relevant that the investigation into the interference was obstructed, as it affects the kind of evidence that can be gathered and thus the findings of what actually happened." Per editing restrictions in force, I have asked Snoogans to self-revert and leave the content out while it is discussed here. — JFG talk 16:08, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the self-revert. Now let's hear why this should be mentioned here. — JFG talk 16:18, 7 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Let me explain why I wrote this here. I believed that the original text, simply stating that Mueller had found no collusion to be incomplete, and somewhat biased. While I realize that on Wikipedia, keeping bias at bay is nearly impossible, I believe that we must make it clear what the report says, instead of just saying that there was no collusion. KingWither (talk) 17:17, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Also the report emphasizes that missing documents, gaps in the evidence, and Trump's "memory fails" (possibly successful obstruction) made it difficult to prove conspiracy even with dozzens of contacts with Russians.
 * IMHO, "the investigation did not establish" is quite different than "no collusion," and does give the appearance that something was found in this regard (I do think it is a correct observation, without checking the diffs, that at one point this quote in the article was refactored to state "no collusion," which was/is inaccurate). I do also see several places in the report that describes less-than-total cooperation by subjects in the investigation - including the president himself, who refused for a year to be interviewed by Mueller - and the lack of cooperation is cited as a factor in why Mueller declined to make additional charges (Vol. 1, Pg. 18). Perhaps this lack of cooperation that affected the conspiracy ("collusion") investigation could be elaborated upon in a different section of the article, such as the "Russian Involvement" section. Happysomeone (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * That's an interesting discussion to have at Talk:Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019), not here. This article is about the 2016 election. All allegations of obstruction of justice refer to acts that Trump took either during the transition or after taking office. Off-topic for this article. — JFG talk 21:35, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Respectfully, expanding upon the conspiracy investigation is relevant to the 2016 United States presidential election page. Despite the best efforts of the Special Counsel/DOJ, we still do not have a full history of what occurred in the Trump Campaign during the 2016 Election. The Mueller Report section on the conspiracy investigation (not the obstruction-of-justice investigation - the section that was removed from the article & started the discussion here) documents a lack of cooperation by several subjects and targets in the investigation. It is fair, accurate and within the scope of the article to at minimum make a passing reference to that fact, and I would support an edit that provided this information. Happysomeone (talk) 14:55, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Try in the article body then. That is definitely not lead-worthy material. — JFG talk 23:35, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that's a fair & reasonable observation. Thanks for the consideration. 162.119.240.103 (talk) 16:49, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Of course it is relevant that Trump obstructed the investigation into the interference in the election, as affects the evidence that can be gathered and thus the full findings of what actually happened. The obstruction of justice should be mentioned in the lede. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:10, 7 May 2019 (UTC) Trump has not been proven or exonerated from having "obstructed." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.114.185.130 (talk) 16:18, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Russian Interference section/Mueller Report edit
An attempted edit for this section was reverted for "Citation Needed." Here is the proposed edit: Cut: Barr stated that, Mueller "did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its effort to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election." Add: On April 18, Barr released a partially redacted version of the report to the public, titled "Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election." The report is divided into two volumes: The first examined the Russian Government involvement in the 2016 presidential election and interactions it had with the Trump Campaign, while the second examined President Trump's actions towards the investigation itself.

Regarding the investigation into whether or not the Trump Campaign had illegally conspired with the Russian Government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, Mueller concluded that, "(a)lthough the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

Regarding the obstruction-of-justice investigation, Mueller concluded that "(t)he evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

I intend to restore this edit as it contains a citation that refers the reader directly to the report document, followed by passages quoted directly from the report. - Happysomeone (talk) 17:53, 26 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The Barr/Mueller exchanges are way too much detail for this article. It's enough to just state the Mueller report's conclusion about lack of "conspiracy or coordination with Russia" by the Trump campaign. The obstruction of justice allegations are not relevant to the election. — JFG talk 13:55, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Excluding the Mueller Report's findings on the Obstruction of Justice investigation is a debatable but fair point, which I concede. But partially editing the concluding sentence for the conspiracy charge, significantly alters the meaning of the report's conclusion and could be misleading. Better to retain the entire sentence with the essential context. Happysomeone (talk) 16:39, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Of course it is relevant that Trump obstructed the investigation into the interference in the election, as affects the evidence that can be gathered and thus the full findings of what actually happened. The obstruction of justice should be mentioned in the lede. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:10, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Ummm... Trump has not been proven or exonerated from having "obstructed." Your point is therefore moot and carries no weight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.114.185.130 (talk) 16:12, 1 June 2019 (UTC)


 * If we're dealing in facts specific to Trump, then a review of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's May 29 press conference should have made clear that his office was not allowed to indict the President on "obstruction" under DOJ rules, and passes no judgment on whether prosecutors believe Trump is guilty of a crime. Because no criminal case can be brought against Trump on Obstructing Justice - at least as long as he remains president - he is treated as innocent in the eyes of the law. But as the report details, there is objectively a lot of evidence against Trump on obstruction of justice and at some point the question could become a political one in the form of censure or impeachment. Once Trump no longer holds the office of president, and if the statute of limitations has not yet passed, Trump could still be theoretically indicted for obstruction. Happysomeone (talk) 19:06, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Candidate Portraits
Trumps' portrait has been changed because the photo was not from his pre-presidential time, if you look at all the other portraits from the other presidential election pages the pictures are never from before they when, therefore I changed it.

This seems like a good point. Why is a photo from after the election being used? --Tartan357 (talk) 03:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Cut 4th paragraph of the Lede
The entirety of the fourth paragraph should be cut from the lede. The problem with its current inclusion is that it contains detailed information that should be placed elsewhere in the article. A single sentence summation of the 4th paragraph could be worked into the third paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.114.185.130 (talk • contribs)


 * Opposed. Editors should remain mindful, given the article discusses the most recent & complete presidential election, that much of the lead/introduction section is a collective first draft of history and will probably have more detail in this section than historical articles on the same event (and it will remain so in that sense until the completion of the 2020 election). Wikipedia articles on recent presidential elections tend to follow a similar format in the introduction, covering the following themes in the following four paragraphs: 1) Result; 2) Contenders; 3) Issues; and 4) Notable facts/information regarding the election result. In my opinion, the second and third paragraphs are the more likely candidates for editing as the fourth paragraph concerns a still developing/ongoing political and national security issue: The Russian government's interference in the 2016 Elections. The only similar treatment of a major issue relating to the electoral result in recent history was the 2000 United States presidential election article's summary of the election recount. The article uses three sentences in the third paragraph to briefly describe the recount, which was ended by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, while the fourth paragraph here uses five sentences in a relatively summarized description - hardly "detailed information" unworthy of prominent mention in the introduction. Certainly, several edits could be made to second, third, and fourth paragraphs for the sake of brevity - but not exclusively to the fourth paragraph. Happysomeone (talk) 18:39, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose, it's noteworthy, there was a very publicized investigation, no way to be trimmed into one sentence.  starship .paint  (talk) 08:00, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Other controversies
There were many other controversies than the e-mail investigation. Hillary Clinton was also damaged by questions about the Clinton Foundation and the high paid speeches she and her husband gave to Wall Street firms who received bailout money, after voting for the bailout in the Senate. The e-mail controversy just perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back, but didn't defeat her by itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:AD08:EC00:346F:8017:60CD:DA07 (talk) 02:19, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

"Despite losing the popular vote"
I think the mention of the Democratic ticket losing "despite winning the popular vote" should be removed from the first paragraph of the lead. U.S. presidential elections are not, and never have been determined based on popular vote percentage and this sentence makes it sound as if it is some significant contestoral anomaly that the Democratic ticket lost despite winning the popular vote. I do think that the Dem ticket losing the popular vote should be mentioned in the lead somewhere, but the way the popular vote is currently mentioned is odd and makes it sound as if the Dem ticket "should have" won but somehow didn't. Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 17:12, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Since 1820, there were only five elections where the candidate who won the popular vote did not get elected President. See the main article United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote.

The examples so far were the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. The popular vote was won respectively by Andrew Jackson, Samuel J. Tilden, Grover Cleveland, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton, but the Presidency was won (to much controversy) by John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Dimadick (talk) 18:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm not arguing that it is not a rare and notable occurrence that a presidential election results in the winner not winning the popular vote, I'm arguing that the way it is currently phrased and positioned in the lead paragraph almost suggests to the reader there is an expectation that if one wins the popular vote that they should then win the presidency, which is not the case. I think removing this part of the first paragraph and leaving the rest of the popular vote references in the third paragraph would be better.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Basil the Bat Lord (talk • contribs) 19:08, 22 June 2019 (UTC) Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 22:10, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Nah. The use of both the popular vote and the Electoral College to select the U.S. President is a uniquely American process in a representative democracy, in contrast to most other democracies that operate under a different form of democracy to elect the country's leader. Winning the majority of the popular vote is significant because it confers the candidate with a personal mandate to lead the country, directly from its citizens. Therefore, the divergence of the U.S. popular vote winner and the Electoral College winner in this indirect process is very noteworthy, and deserves a prominent mention in the first paragraph of any article on the US presidential election (it's currently in the 2nd sentence, which is consistent with other presidential election articles). Happysomeone (talk) 16:25, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 July 2019
The end vote tally should reflect this new information from Breitbart News Alana Mastrangelo 17 July, 2019 which found that Google manipulated 2.6 Million to 10.4 Million votes in favor of Hillary R. Clinton thus very possibly resulting in her winning the popular vote. This information was testified before the Judiciary Subcommittee SD-226. 2605:E000:121E:10B:C09D:385C:C6A3:5BD1 (talk) 01:25, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * ❌ Breitbart is an unreliable source for statements of fact - see WP:RSP. Alduin2000 (talk) 01:39, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It's not just Breitbart, as this LA Times article suggests. It's largely focused on the guided search "autocorrect" feature on Google, which differs from other major search engines such as Yahoo & Bing. But it's still a developing area of research, and there are some extraordinary assumptions made in the research that are fairly controversial (such as assuming a significant number of voters on the fence were persuaded to vote for a Democrat entirely because of the sources Google fed them). I would absolutely not support including this information anywhere near the "end vote tally" as that is a record of the total number of votes cast after the voter had made a decision. I would be interested in seeing if a mention of this could be included somewhere in the body of the article about the campaign itself and efforts to persuade voters - perhaps next to the paragraph that details Trump's significant advantage in free media exposure up to Feb. 2016, which the article estimates he enjoyed "almost $2 billion in free media attention, twice the amount that Clinton received," up to that point in the election (Trump also enjoyed direct support from a foreign government, namely Russia, during the campaign - it's unclear if the efforts, which included a social media component, persuaded any voters to support Trump and fellow Republicans - and is detailed within this article and as a standalone article). Happysomeone (talk) 15:58, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Adding information about Mccarthyism
It should be mentioned that the persecutions against Trump and Russia is a form of Mccarthyism of the Left. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.142.6.72 (talk) 05:43, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You'd probably be better served taking your issues with so-called Russophobia to the Special Counsel investigation/Mueller Report talk page. Happysomeone (talk) 16:04, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Mismatching vote totals
In the big table with results from all the states, why do the results for Maine CD-1 and Maine CD-2 not agree with the total for the whole state of Maine? The same is true of Nebraska's 3 districts. The differences are never more than 150 votes, but it's still annoying. (I only checked for Clinton and Trump. Other candidates may show the same problem.) —MiguelMunoz (talk) 22:34, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Mid-Major Party and Independent Debates
Do we have any information for the non-CPD debates run for the 2016 election that featured the candidates not from the major two parties, and if so, is there a spot in the article we can place them? 2604:2D80:A205:F300:86E:A935:2056:26C9 (talk) 02:53, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 August 2019
change: (the largest margin ever for a candidate who lost the electoral college),[16] a margin of 2.1%,

into:

a margin of 2.1%[16] (the largest ever for a candidate who lost the electoral college), Tienne Meunier (talk) 16:53, 4 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done Highway 89 (talk) 21:18, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 August 2019
Take out the liberal bias wording 2600:100E:B01C:5D8F:5D07:C624:B3C8:CB96 (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. &#8209;&#8209; El Hef  ( Meep? ) 12:48, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Faithless elector court case
There was just a federal appelate decision upholding faithless elector ballots being "counted", including one for Kasich (the elector had been pledged to Clinton) that the Colorado secretary of state had thrown away. I think that brings Kasich's EV up to 2 since he got another one in Texas. The paragraph
 * One Clinton elector in Colorado attempted to vote for John Kasich.[635] The single vote was ruled invalid by Colorado state law, the elector was dismissed, and an alternative elector was sworn in who voted for Clinton.[636][633]

in the faithless elector section should be updated. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 18:16, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Add map by margin of victory
I created a map, that shows the 2016 presidential election results by margin of victory, and not by winning candidate's percentage of the vote (which the current maps are based on). In my opinion, margins of victory are more useful in determining how a state voted. For example, in Utah only 46% of voters chose Trump, but he won by 18 percentage points due to the strong performance of independents. By contrast, in Michigan 47% of the vote went to Trump, but he only won the state by 0.2%. Can someone please add my map to this article, if possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:8610:6870:B4CA:289:FC79:E5F7 (talk) 06:52, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Missing popular vote totals for 3rd party canddates
I came here looking for this data, but apparently whoever is moderating this article is biased against them. Sad. Found my answers at the FEC website https://transition.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2016/2016presgeresults.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:449:8200:1429:FDE1:EB07:9F59:4662 (talk) 16:23, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Rocky De La Fuente
There are efforts to remove Rocky De La Fuente as a major third party candidate. He achieved ballot access in 20 states. Some are making the arbitrary argument that due to the election results, he should be removed. That stance ignores the general view that he obtained ballot access in enough states to potentially be a serious competitor. Additionally, given that Evan McMullin had ballot access in fewer states and there fore had less visibility on the ballot in comparison to Mr De La Fuente, the removal of Mr De La Fuente seems unfounded and arbitrary — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joewendt (talk • contribs) 02:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I am the third editor to revert all the edits by above. He is pushing Rocky De La Fuente as a Democratic contender in 2016.  Real time, I do not recall hearing a mention of him until the general when obscure third parties were mentioned.  Looking at the pattern, this looks like POV pushing.  He is toying with WP:3RR.  I do not profess to understand the full 3D Chess going on here, but this editor has an agenda.  The editor, Joe Wendt, personally has already declared his candidacy for President in 2020  and worked as the Florida Chairman for the Reform Party (membership 1,400) which nominated De La Fuente for the Florida ballot, therefore he personally can carry more political credibility by over-reporting the success of De La Fuente.  WP:COI  And he is representing the Libertarian Party, or the Reform Party, or the Delta Party, each of which clearly is not the Democratic.  This multi-party hopping kind of indicates that the importance of pushing name recognition is more important than political affiliation or a core political agenda.  The key point is, wikipedia should have WP:NPOV and this clearly is not in the spirit of a NPOV. Trackinfo (talk) 05:30, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I am removing him from the Democratic candidates list again. I believe there is a coordinated effort to add exaggerate the importance of Rocky De La Fuente. The user who made many of the significant contributions, Marnie Hawes discloses on their user page that they have been "paid by Elia Mora on behalf of Rocky De La Fuente for her contributions to wikipedia". Clear conflict of interest. Joe Wendt, a Reform Party of Florida Chair, has also been active, and was a key figure in campaigns past of De La Fuente. This has been taking place on a number of pages associated with De La Fuente, such as Rocky De La Fuente, 2020 Republican Party presidential primaries, and 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries. I believe there should be consensus as to whether he should be added before he is added again, and one free of conflicts of interest. NebuchadnezzarHammurabi (talk) 07:13, 31 October 2019 (UTC)


 * NebuchadnezzarHammurabi, You removed him from this section yesterday. Some other senior editor Cards84664 undid your revision. And you have erased him from 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries. I am a paid contributor and I have disclosed it on my user page. Roque De La Fuente withdrew on the same date Bernie Sanders did (July 26,2016). He deserves to be there because he was a Democratic candidate in 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries. And here, Template:2020 United States presidential election you have re added Richard Odeja after another senior removed him from it. I don't understand what you are trying to do. Would you please explain? Marnie Hawes (talk) 15:37, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I removed him as that is the status quo - your edits, I believe, constituted a conflict of interest, and that the edits made were bias toward Rocky De La Fuente, as part of his 2020 presidential campaign. This reversion to the status quo is in line with Wikipedia standards, as I do not believe there is a consensus toward adding him as a major Democratic candidate in 2016, or as a major Republican candidate in 2020, hence my edits on the pages involving him. He was first added as a major Democratic candidate in 2016 on this page on ~25th of October, on the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries page ~28th of October, and as a major Republican candidate on the 2020 Republican Party presidential primaries page ~25th of October. I believe that this has been part of an operation in his 2020 campaign, and as such, have sought to limit possible conflicts of interest by asking users to seek consensus on the respective talk pages. Often, these calls have been ignored, and I (alone with a number of other users) have reverted the changes made back to the status quo prior to late October. I do not believe that De La Fuente is a major candidate in any of these races. He was/has not been featured in any reputable polling group's polls (i.e. one's collected on wikipedia) and coverage of both his campaigns has been minimal, as well as failing to participate in the Democratic debates. This is compared to Lawrence Lessig, as, while failing to participate in the 2016 Democratic debates, had both his campaign entrance and exit covered by major and reputable news outlets such as Politico [], The Guardian [], The Washington Post [], The New Yorker [], Vox [], CNN [] etc. All other featured candidates made at least one debate, if not more. Rocky De La Fuente received very little media coverage, and to my knowledge, was not featured in any large scale publication for his 2016 campaign. Also note that he is included as part of the 2016 Democratic Party presidential candidates article, as a minor candidate. Also note that no other minor candidate, as classified by this page, is featured as part of the 2016 Democratic primaries page. This is a fair application, as he is in the same category as Willie Wilson, for example. The date of withdrawal is irrelevant, in my eyes, as candidates such as Robby Wells never drop out.As to Ojeda, this is neither here nor their in regard to this discussion, but you will find the Talk page for 2020 Democratic candidates has yet to make a decision as to his inclusion or not. The reversion I made was in line with that talk page, as another user made a WP:BOLD decision to remove him during the consensus building stage, which was then reverted by me as a consensus had not been reach (I believe there was a rough split at the time).  Further edits I made on Ojeda were to bring articles related to him in line with other 2020 major candidates until such a time as a consensus is reached. And as to what I am doing - I am making Wikipedia a consistent, informative, concise source for other to use. I believe I have been consistent in my arguments. NebuchadnezzarHammurabi (talk) 09:16, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I have fully protected this page for two days to stop the edit warring. As always, please discuss here and reach a consensus. As I understand the situation, there was only a single mention of Rocky de la Fuente in this article until October 25, when a major section about him and a reference to him as a Democratic candidate were added to the article by a paid editor. There has been edit warring on the subject since then. I believe the article is now largely restored to its longstanding condition, as it should be in the case of disputed material. If I am wrong about the sequence of editing, please correct me here.

Marnie, I will counsel you on your talk page about your role as a paid editor. I believe that Joe Wendt should also be considered a COI editor and I will so advise him. He has already been so advised. In the meantime, the pros and cons of how much to say about de la Fuente should be discussed with each other (not with me) here. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:16, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

New image for Hillary Clinton
The current image that is displayed for Clinton no longer matches with the photo that's on her Wikipedia page, and the photo on this page is older than the one on her personal page. Both images are prior to Election Day 2016. To change the image to what it is on her personal page (File:Hillary Clinton Arizona 2016 .jpg) would add consistency to the pages, and add a more recent image, but still an image prior to the 2016 election. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RadicalKid78 (talk • contribs)
 * I have reverted both, neither change has consensus at this time. <b style="background:#0000ff;font:Helvetica;padding:0.4em;font-size: 80%;border-radius: 2em;margin: 0.25em;"> Cards84664 </b> (talk) 08:29, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

"Ukrainian involvement" section
I have removed a section called "Ukrainian involvement" because I think it doesn't give the full context and risks misleading the reader. The text cites articles from January 2017 and December 2018 indicating that the disclosure by Ukrainian prosecutors of the illegal activities of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort might have aided Clinton. The Politico article refers to this disclosure as something that "strain[ed] diplomatic protocol," but I don't see support in the broad array of sources, particularly more recent sources, for the idea that this constituted "Ukrainian involvement" in the U.S. election &mdash; and certainly not involvement on a major scope/scale of the Russian interference campaign. (The Politico article acknowleges that there is "little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine," which lacks the capacity to "pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country’s election."

More recent sources are far clearer on this than the text that was added, and a number of sources have diverged from the Politico article. For example, see:


 * this Washington Post article from November 21, 2019: "Ukrainian officials were involved in exposing the corruption of then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is now serving a prison term on fraud charges related to millions of dollars he received for consulting work in Ukraine financed by political operatives close to the Kremlin. But [Former National Security Council official Fiona] Hill and others have said there is no evidence that the Ukrainian government interfered in the U.S. election of 2016, let alone did so on the scale of Russia."


 * This November 21 Media Matters article, entitled "Right-wing media cite Politico to revive Trump's Ukraine conspiracy theory. Here's why that doesn't work": "After the Politico report came out, other media outlets went to work examining the allegations and found there wasn’t anything to them... The Washington Post [in July 2017] reported, 'While the Politico story ... documents ways in which Ukrainian officials appeared to prefer Clinton’s candidacy, what’s missing is evidence of a concerted effort driven by Kiev.'"

--Neutralitytalk 14:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * , I'd like for you to be more specific in your concerns. How is the content out of context? How does it mislead the reader? Yes, Ukrainian involvement was not on the same scope as that of Russia. That's why the section on it is much shorter than the section on Russian involvement and also why we have this sentence: However, Poliitco concluded that Ukrainian efforts to undermine Trump "were far less concerted or centrally directed" than Russian efforts against Clinton.


 * There is plenty of sourcing to justify inclusion of this content in the article. I have used two reliable sources already, the New York Times and Politico. Ukrainian involvement amounts to publishing information intended to damage the Trump campaign. The Washington Post article (which comes from 2019, not 2018) acknowledges that they did that through its statement on Manafort, and only quotes other people who say that Ukraine did not interfere. This does not contradict the Politico article. Media Matters is a partisan news organization and their position on the issue should be treated as such. I will also repeat to you the fact that a Ukrainian court ruled that the release of damaging information on Manafort "resulted in meddling in the electoral process of the United States in 2016 and damaged the national interests of Ukraine." Two lawmakers said that if the court ruled that the release of such information was illegal, which it did, that it constituted an illegal attempt to hurt Trump and help Clinton. That sounds like Ukrainian involvement to me.


 * There is more. Here is a quote from an article from The Atlantic: "Where things get more complicated is in comparing the specifics of the Russia and Ukraine cases—at least to the extent that we understand them so far. In both cases, a foreign government appears to have influenced the U.S. election in significant but ultimately unquantifiable ways. The Ukrainian government announced an investigation that contributed to the downfall of Trump’s campaign chief, while the Russian government is thought to have spread fake news and hacked and distributed Democratic Party emails that helped shape the political debate in the final stretch of the presidential campaign." A CBS news article here states that there was an unusual relationship between the Clinton campaign and Ukrainian government. An article from The Hill talks about it here, and while it does not reach a definitive conclusion on whether Ukrainian interference happened, says that the topic is worthy of further investigation. An opinion piece published in The Washington Examiner, a right-leaning source but still high quality, declares that Ukrainian interference is "fact." The fact that a Ukrainian court, two Ukrainian officials, Politico, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and CBS News all say that Ukrainian involvement in the election did occur certainly makes such a subject worthy of a short section in the article. Display name 99 (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * , to be more specific and add on to what I said:
 * (1) I think inclusion of this content fails the due weight test entirely. This is a broad-scope article (the 2016 election was a big event, with a series of major events and sub-topics). In the midst of everything that occurred, I don't think this passes muster as something that really needs to be, or should be, included (see also #2). And the way that the sections were framed ("Russian involvement" and "Ukrainian involvement") implicitly suggests that there was some sort of parallel influence-operation by Ukraine, which was not true.
 * (2) Further to the due-weight issue: I also object to singling out Ukraine rather than the many other countries whose officials expressed some support or opposition to the U.S. candidates. The coverage was ample. To take a random sampling, see, e.g., David Cameron stands by attack on Donald Trump over Muslim 'ban', BBC News (May 16, 2016); Trump loses support of Jacob Rees-Mogg... but he may be secretly relieved, The Guardian (Oct. 14, 2016); Canada's Thomas Mulcair says Donald Trump is a fascist – video, The Guardian (Mar. 31, 2016). We don't include these, of course, probably for due-weight reasons, so I really see no reason why we would include a section on Ukraine. Just because something "occurred" does not mean it has to be included in this specific encyclopedia article.
 * (3) The articles you cite are not convincing, and actually weaken the case for inclusion. First, The Hill article is an opinion article by John Solomon, who is well-known for promoting bogus conspiracy theories, including specifically conspiracy theories related to Ukraine. See Jane Mayer, The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine, New Yorker (October 4, 2019) and Jake Pearson, Mike Spies and J. David McSwane, How a Veteran Reporter Worked with Giuliani’s Associates to Launch the Ukraine Conspiracy, ProPublica (October 25, 2019). The CBS News article you cite does not directly support the contention that "there was an unusual relationship between the Clinton campaign and Ukrainian government." And the Washington Examiner article you cite is an opinion piece from a right-wing outlet, so I don't think this furthers the argument for inclusion any more than some Salon opinion article would. Neutralitytalk 17:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, --Neutralitytalk 17:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * , (1) and (2)-I think that the event is notable enough and covered by enough sources to warrant inclusion. What Ukrainian officials did goes beyond making public statements about one candidate or the other. They released damaging information on a senior campaign official which actually resulted in that official's resignation, thereby having a tangible effect on the American electoral process. That goes beyond what political leaders in other countries besides Russia did.


 * (3) It is not true that the CBS article does not imply that anything unusual existed between the Clinton campaign and UKrainian government (or the Ukrainian government and DNC). Here are two direct quotes: "Still, it's deeply unusual for an American campaign to be working with foreign assets like this, regardless of whether it's Ukraine or Russia." And: "Although the Russian efforts to interfere in last year's election were almost certainly more sophisticated and worrying than anything the Ukrainians and the DNC pulled off, we don't expect campaigns to behave this way. Or, rather, we didn't before 2016." I said that I understood that the Examiner article is an opinion piece from a conservative outlet, but the fact that such a column was published in a mainstream newspaper indicates that the event is notable. It can't be worth anything less than the Media Matters article you brought up.


 * If we cannot come to an agreement here, as appears likely, it would probably be best for one of us to begin an RfC in order to come to a conclusion on the matter. Display name 99 (talk) 17:40, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * To be clear, the CBS News article states that the consultant did not work for the Clinton campaign (as you initially asserted); she was a consultant with the DNC. The article states that even a conservative columnist acknowledged that "Democrats appeared to take pains to keep all this business away from the Clinton campaign."
 * I might be OK with including a brief mention of this in the Paul Manafort article, but to include it in this broad-scope article goes way too far. Neutralitytalk 17:53, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The op-ed pages of the Washington Examiner do not at all indicate notability, as they frequently push crackpot conspiracy theories and outright lies. --Snooganssnoogans, 18:48, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Former Senator Barack Obama
"President Barack Obama, a Democrat and former U.S. Senator from Illinois"

I don't see the relevance of him being a former Senator. 114.74.89.165 (talk) 06:40, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

RfC on proposed section on Ukrainian involvement
Should the article contain information on Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election as proposed here, or something similar? Display name 99 (talk) 23:43, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes-Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election has been documented by numerous reliable sources. This as well as its effectiveness in forcing Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to resign make it notable enough to warrant inclusion in this article. It is documented in a Washington Post article, an article from The Atlantic, an article from CBS News, an editorial from The Hill, and a Washington Examiner opinion piece. The fact that a Ukrainian court, two Ukrainian officials, and articles published in all of these sources all say that Ukrainian involvement in the election did occur certainly makes such a subject noteworthy. Even if for whatever reason it doesn't deserve its own section, it certainly should be mentioned somewhere.


 * Yes, Ukrainian involvement was not on the same scope as that of Russia. That's why the section on it is much shorter than the section on Russian involvement, comes after it, and is also why we have this sentence: However, Politico concluded that Ukrainian efforts to undermine Trump "were far less concerted or centrally directed" than Russian efforts against Clinton. Display name 99 (talk) 23:43, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Exclude. This fails the due-weight test. There are plenty of foreign officials and governments (including heads of state) "involved" in the campaign in some sense. See, e.g., Trump complains Ukraine 'hated' him as a candidate, but lots of foreign officials opposed him, Washington Post (Nov. 22, 2019): "Months before Trump’s election, The Washington Post collected more than 60 negative remarks made about the Republican candidate by foreign officials. ... from all over the world." There's no reason to single out Ukraine specifically in the context of this broad-scope article: the 2016 election was a big event, with a series of major events and sub-topics, and this content is neither particularly significant nor particularly noteworthy. Moreover (and more importantly), the way the proposed content is framed ("Ukrainian involvement" as immediately following "Russian involvement") implicitly echoes the false claim that there was some sort of parallel influence-operation by Ukraine, which is not true and, in fact, is an central element of Russian disinformation efforts. See this New York Times article from today: "Moscow has run a yearslong operation to blame Ukraine for its own 2016 election interference." The Washington Post article cited above in support of including this content actually undercuts it &mdash; describing "murkier claims" related to Ukraine).


 * Moreover, the "editorial from The Hill" cited above as a supposed argument for inclusion (??) is in fact by John Solomon, who has gained notoriety by promoting bogus conspiracy theories related to Ukraine. See Jane Mayer, The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine, New Yorker (October 4, 2019) and Jake Pearson, Mike Spies and J. David McSwane, How a Veteran Reporter Worked with Giuliani’s Associates to Launch the Ukraine Conspiracy, ProPublica (October 25, 2019). Neutralitytalk 23:58, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Hell no You are referencing some really bad sources, including the Washington examiner, which is a right-wing partisan source, and a John Solomon op-ed in the hill. John Solomon is a discredited author who has spread this conspiracy theory, and is not a good source for it. Reliable sources, such as this one from the Associated Press, refer to the conspiracy theory that the Ukraine was involved in meddling in the 2016 election as "debunked". It is a WP:FRINGE theory and we do not push fringe theories. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:00, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Exclude This is a WP:FRINGE theory. In fact, the Washington Post article cited by User:Display name 99 quotes "respected Russia scholar who previously served as a top U.S. intelligence official" Fiona Hill as stating in her Congressional testimony "Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves." As noted by Muboshgu, the Washington Examiner and John Solomon are not reliable sources for the reasons they provided. Mdaniels5757 (talk) 00:57, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Exclude The sources used in the disputed text are reliable (New York Times and Politico)  and do factually support the claims made specifically in relation to Manafort. However, I do have similar issues as Muboshgu regarding undue weight. I don't have major issues with the text, (other than using the 'assertion from unnamed parliamentarians' that this was an attempt to help Clinton - I'd drop that.) but I don't think this article is the place for it, at least not in this format. Cjhard (talk) 02:32, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Exclude - It's weird that User:Display_name_99 suggested the WaPo article "documents" "Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election". It does not. In fact it documents how this conspiracy theory was proposed by Trump and political allies. If the proposal is that we add information about this subject as a conspiracy theory, that might work. We could for instance say, "the Trump administration, in an attempt to divert attention from Russian support for their campaign, tried to spread a conspiracy theory regarding Ukraine's involvement in the election". Is User:Display_name_99 proposing we add content that like that? NickCT (talk) 16:51, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
 * No, because it is not a conspiracy theory and claiming that it is so would further the already heavy liberal bias on Wikipedia. Display name 99 (talk) 05:05, 28 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Exclude - propaganda spin control diversion. EllenCT (talk) 21:11, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

popular vote in the presidential election for the two major candidates
Dear Article Writer/Editor, It would be helpful to many users to have both the electoral college outcome and the underlying popular vote totals set out in the lead (first ¶). These two data points are surely those most often sought by students and probably by members of the public as well. This data addition would not encumber the sentence but would make the article more immediately transparent and useful. The discrepancy between the popular and electoral votes is one of the two significant historical and political implications of the election. The lead currently suggests a bit of bias as well. Here is an example of the way the lead might incorporate more of essential data and be a bit clearer and suggest (a bit less) bias but still keeping Trump in the first position.

The 2016 United States presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, was the 58th American presidential election. The Republican ticket of businessman and television personality Donald Trump and Indiana Governor and U.S. Congressman Mike Pence garnered 62,984,825 (46.4% of the popular vote) while the Democratic ticket of former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senator from Virginia Tim Kaine won 65,853,516 votes (48.5%).[2] In the Wednesday, December 19, 2016 Electoral College vote, however, the Trump-Pence ticket won over the Clinton-Kaine ticket with a vote of 304 to 227, respectively. Trump took office as the 45th president and Pence as the 48th vice president on January 20, 2017. [original commas are unnecessary, a note here to refer to an article on electoral college votes.]

[to note 2, add a source for the final vote totals, from History.com or other unbiased sources.] [Add date of electoral college vote to comport with the date given for election day 2016) ["quadrennial" reads as pedantic and wordy in this specialized article on a single election; this data should appear in the article on US Presidential elections, generally, and should be stated clearly there with a parenthetical explanation for junior high school readers who may not get the Latin derivation.] [The present casting of the opening sentence (. . . was the 58th quadrennial American presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.) is grammatically flawed, repeating the datum 2016 and implying that all the previous 58 "quadrennial American presidential election(s)" have been held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The comma does not help the sense and is unnecessary.]

Thanks for considering these additions and edits to the article. ew — Preceding unsigned comment added by MSlibraryghost1772 (talk • contribs) 18:06, 16 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The purpose of Wikipedia is to provide factual information as-is, not to seemingly push any given political agenda. The overt intention of the opening paragraph is to clearly state who won the 2016 Presidential election under the rules of the US Constitution.  Since the additional "box-score" details are prominently laid out (without verbal clutter) at the top of the article inside the infobox anyway (just like as in every other YYYY United States presidential election Wikipedia article), there is hardly any need to make the opening paragraph any less concise than it already is.  DWIII (talk) 14:13, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

We need a more thorough "Why did it turn out the way it did" section
Currently, there is only one sub-section, which cites a working paper on the role of automation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election#Impact_of_automation

A lot has been published on this topic, so we can seriously improve on this. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:50, 23 December 2019 (UTC)


 * The best way to improve it, is to leave the framework in place. The framework for dividing liberal and conservative views is the only fair way to do it. Debate and gather the opinions of historians rather than journalists as to why the underdog won is a way to offer a broader view. Historians or perhaps journalists who have written about Populism, as that it what President Trump's 2016 victory really was. My offering was Peter L. Bergen, a journalist who is also a historian and a professor. Bergen's CNN colleague, Fareed Zakaria, gave this view Political scientists, like journalists, tend to be forecasters of campaigns as in game day analysis, by sportscasters. Political science literature is much too technical and narrow for the purposes of our readers in this section. Church of the Rain (talk) 17:05, 26 December 2019 (UTC) [Comingdeer]


 * Absolutely not. We should not cite ramblings and punditry by non-experts (Zakaria and Bergen are not experts on this topic) when there is an enormous literature by actual experts out there, which has both been summarized in layman's terms and is not as technical as you make it seem. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC)