Hillary lost because she's a f***ing idiot. This electoral college crap isn't hard. Trump's path to a win is pretty much narrowed down to having to pick off some critical states. Block him in any of those, and he's done.
The electoral college isn't hard, but the way it played out in 2016 was certainly unexpected.
If you had told me in late October 2016 that Trump would win the election, I would have believed you.
If you had told me that he would win the election the way he did, I would have thought you were crazy. Start with the 2012 election map and list the Obama states (in order of probability) that Trump would win, I'd come up with the following:
1. Iowa
2. Ohio
3. Florida
4. New Hampshire
5. Virginia
6. Nevada
7. New Mexico
8. Colorado
I listed these in this order because with the exception of New Hampshire, these were all states that George W. Bush won in 2004. I would have put Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (in some order) as #9 through #11.
Not so much. Trump's "jobs" message was resonating in the rust belt. Michael Moore was bitching about how much it was resonating in Michigan, and if it was resonating there, it was definitely resonating in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
I told my kids for months that Trump was going to win this because I was keeping up with what was going on in the swing states. The only one I was worrying about was Florida, but it came out right. I was keeping up with polling and commentary from people who were in the swing states, and many said they saw no Hillary signs, but the Trump signs were all over the place. People on the ground said there was much enthusiasm for Trump, but none for Hillary, plus his rallies were being attended by thousands while she could seldom scrap together "hundreds."
I was surprised that we got Wisconsin, and nearly Minnesota.