Charlie Cook: “The re­li­ance, or per­haps over-re­li­ance on ana­lyt­ics, may be one of the factors con­trib­ut­ing to Clin­ton’s sur­prise de­feat. The Clin­ton team was so con­fid­ent in its ana­lyt­ic­al mod­els that it op­ted not to con­duct track­ing polls in a num­ber of states dur­ing the last month of cam­paign. As a con­sequence, de­teri­or­at­ing sup­port in states like Michigan and Wis­con­sin fell be­low the radar screen, slip­page that that tra­di­tion­al track­ing polls would have cer­tainly caught.”

“Ac­cord­ing to Kantar Me­dia/CMAG data, the Clin­ton cam­paign did not go on the air with tele­vi­sion ads in Wis­con­sin un­til the weeks of Oc­to­ber 25 and Novem­ber 1, spend­ing in the end just $2.6 mil­lion. Su­per-PACs back­ing Clin­ton’s didn’t air ads in Wis­con­sin un­til the last week of the cam­paign. In Michigan, aside for a tiny $16,000 buy by the cam­paign and a party com­mit­tee the week of Oc­to­ber 25, the Clin­ton cam­paign and its al­lied groups didn’t con­duct a con­cer­ted ad­vert­ising ef­fort un­til a week be­fore the elec­tion.”

“In fact the Clin­ton cam­paign spent more money on tele­vi­sion ad­vert­ising in Ari­zona, Geor­gia and the Omaha mar­kets than in Michigan and Wis­con­sin com­bined.”

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