I wasn’t surprised and I don’t see why anyone was. Here is why I think she lost.
It was obvious to me that Hillary was not inspiring anyone. No one was coming out to her campaign events. She wasn’t holing press conferences. She was collapsing at events, cancelling events and cutting events short.
Too many people found her distasteful and condescending. Rumors of her ill health were too well founded to be ignored. The claims of corruption involving her ‘Charity’ were too convincing.
From early in the primary campaign I never gave her a chance. Once Clinton won the primary I was pretty confident that Trump would win. I really didn’t think it would be even close.
Although I read Ed Klein’s ‘insider’ books with some skepticism, the information regarding Hillary’s health had the ring of truth about it, not least because of the 9/11 collapse (which reverberated around the nation and the world despite a desperate, determined media blackout) and the obvious visual evidence of a shapeless, haggard, shambling figure who could barely manage 30 minutes on her feet and whose robotic movements only reinforced the notion she was ill. Age, obesity, a long term sedentary lifestyle and the open secret of her heavy drinking and you have a disastrous combination.
What concerns me then and now, however, is the tendency on all sides to forget the precarious state of her health. In our case the euphoria of Trump’s win and the vanquishing - by anyone - of the Clinton slime factory have shortened our memories. The lefties have made some pro forma attempts at claiming a rigged election but their lack of enthusiasm for the job is evident.
That doesn’t stop me from asking: what if she had won? The strain of the campaign would have been exactly the same. Her gilded White House cage would have made a nice convalescent center but someone that poorly, regardless of party or ideology, should have no business making decisions large or small, especially regarding military actions, national defense, terrorism, etc. Obviously the media would have moved heaven and earth to give us a 21st century FDR and wouldn’t have given a thought to her fitness for office. Maybe I’ve got a bit of PTSD after a quarter century of watching her baseness of character but I still have frequent ‘daymares’ about a Hillary presidency, especially the Potemkin variety.
She was only able to do as well as she did because she had a favorable press overwhelmingly on her side pumping her up and protecting her as best they could; she had a huge monetary advantage over Trump; and while Trump's inexperience and temperament were a big asset in some ways, it also likely hurt him with some voters who didn't want to take a chance. Still, given all that, she was only able to get the popular vote by 2% and *150%* of her margin was from CA, which shows how unhealthy and skewed it was...as opposed to Obama in '12 and Bush in '04 whose popular vote margins were about 60% from CA and TX respectively--which shows how broad-spectrum their support was. Hillary's was limited and very localized.
Anyhow, as long as Trump does a decent job (and doesn't break any of his big promises!), he will be hard to take out come 2020 as he'll be the sitting President with all the powers, prestige and advantages being an incumbent confers.