Thought Series: 2016 Election + Game Theory

For lack of a better phrase, I'm calling this my Thought Series. In keeping with my newly minted goal of documenting past and present ideas, this one comes from last November. It's more of an observation but it also applies forward. Initially, I had fleshed it out and documented it elsewhere, on November 30, 2016.

The 2016 Election Outcome Was an Accidental Game Theory

I'm sure that this idea is not new and that others have probably considered it by now, if not implemented it, but I haven't yet read anything about it. The fact that no one has claimed credit for the tactic implies that it was an accidental tactic.

Remember, he lost the popular vote by nearly 3M. His win was in the margins of the precincts of toss-up states and one where we can distill down to a two-person game theory.

In a simple, 2-person game you have two candidates vying for two groups of voting precincts.

If each visits only their favorable precincts to shore up voter enthusiasm, the winner is the person who already had a lead.

If both visit the other candidate's favorable precincts, the peel-off rate (voters who'd changed sides) would likely be the same (or similar)*, thus the winner is the person who already had a lead.

But what if one candidate chooses to visit both favorable and unfavorable precincts while the other candidate stuck to visiting favorable candidates? The candidate who visited both precincts would gain an advantage, and if he/she is the one who is behind, he/she now makes the race competitive.

That's basically what happened. Donald visited both types of precincts while Hillary mostly stuck to friendly ones under the goal of shoring up her support. Confident of a win, some of her supporters chose to not vote.

Was Donald's team conscious of this, or was this an unwitting choice? Like I said, I haven't read anyone talking about it, so I'm inclined to believe that it was dumb luck and not an active, informed choice. Plus, it feeds into Donald's narcissistic personality -- the need to be liked by everyone and the focus of all attention. Hillary has always been a guarded candidate, and likewise, her choice to stick with friendlier precincts feeds into that.

Having said that, going forward this is a prudent strategy.


* -- Partisanship -- how far you're willing to vote with your party -- has been growing on both sides. This particular study and graph -- https://goo.gl/Ry1NGC and https://goo.gl/Tm3hTi -- highlight this point. The peel-off rate should be roughly the same.