Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, communications director Jennifer Palmieri and other Clinton aides sought to provide explanations during a private conference call Thursday with supporters of the Democratic nominee for a loss that to many came out of nowhere.
….At one point on the call, Podesta noted that Comey is the guy “who we think may have cost us the election,” according to one Clinton surrogate who relayed details about the call to The Hill.
Another unidentified aide also seemed to blame Comey. “We saw turnout down and didn’t do nearly as well as we thought. Something happened and it happened in a pretty steady way late in the race,” the aide said, according to the surrogate.
Maybe we’re all just kidding ourselves. Who knows? But what else happened in the final ten days of the campaign that would explain a sudden, steady erosion like this?
UPDATE: I missed this earlier, but before the election Nate Silver estimated that Comey’s letter produced something like a 2 percent drop in support for Hillary Clinton. Needless to say, if this is really the case it’s more than enough to account for her loss.