United States

The presidential general election campaign was among the most rancorous in recent history, with Clinton accusing Trump of being devoid of the temperament and judgment required to serve as president, while Trump argued that Clinton lacked the “stamina” necessary for the office and that she should be jailed for what he claimed was criminal use of her private e-mail server while secretary of state. Together they were among the most unpopular final major-party presidential candidates in U.S. history.

Trump’s comments and attitudes toward women and Clinton’s use of that private e-mail server came back to haunt them as the election campaign wound to a close in October. Early in the month a hot-mic video from an infotainment television program (Access Hollywood) in 2005 surfaced in which Trump boasted to a reporter about sexual exploits that were grounded in predatory behaviour. Trump sought to defuse the onslaught of outrage that followed by characterizing his remarks as “locker-room talk” and denied subsequent allegations by a series of women who claimed that he had sexually assaulted them, but his already low support among women voters continued to wane, and some Republicans began to withdraw their endorsements. Only weeks before the election, FBI Director James Comey announced that the bureau was reviewing additional e-mails related to the Clinton investigation that had been recently discovered, intensifying concerns about her trustworthiness that already plagued her candidacy. Only on the Sunday before the election did Comey announce that no criminal activity by Clinton had been found by this additional investigation.

Trump’s victory and Russian interference in the presidential election

In the weeks before the election, Clinton held a small but steady lead in opinion polling both on the national level and in the battleground states. In the event, however, Trump confounded both pollsters and political pundits by not only winning several crucial battleground states (Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina among them) but also by bettering Clinton in states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that had been longtime Democratic strongholds in presidential elections. In the process, Trump found a path to the more than 270 electoral college votes necessary to be elected as the 45th president, although Clinton won the popular vote by more 2.8 million votes. In the meantime, Republicans held on to their majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Pence, Mike; Trump, DonaldPresident-elect Donald Trump (right) shaking hands with running mate Mike Pence prior to Trump's victory speech, November 9, 2016.John Locher/AP Images

Some Democrats blamed what they saw as the undemocratic nature of the electoral college for Clinton’s defeat. Others pointed to Comey’s actions, “fake news” that had been generated by questionable Internet sites and subsequently shared as true news on social media sites like Facebook, and intervention in the election by Russia, including computer hacking of the e-mail of members of the Democratic National Committee and its release through WikiLeaks. During the transition period between the Obama administration and the incoming Trump administration, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies collectively indicated their belief that the Russian government had engaged in a systematic effort to influence the election in Trump’s favour. The president-elect forcefully questioned this conclusion, and Republicans largely dismissed the Democrats’ broader accusations as efforts to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s impending presidency.

United States presidential election of 2016Results of the U.S. presidential election, 2016.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

“America First,” the Women’s Marches, Trump on Twitter, and “fake news”

In his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Trump echoed the populist criticism of the Washington establishment that had been a hallmark of his campaign and struck a strongly nationalist “America First” tone, promising that “America will start winning again, winning like never before.” The day after Trump’s inauguration, “Women’s Marches” and supporting events were held in cities across the United States and abroad in support of (among other issues) gender and racial equality and in defiance of the legislative and cultural challenges to them that the marchers expected from President Trump and a Republican congressional majority. Estimates varied, but many observers suggested that between 3.3 million and 4.6 million people had turned out to march in U.S. cities, making the collective action one of the largest mass protests in U.S. history.