Did FBI Director James Comey tip the race to Donald Trump?

FBI Director James Comey played some role in Hillary Clinton loss

(Image credit: Getty Images)

last updated 9 November 2016

Eleven days before Election Day, FBI Director James Comey inserted himself into the presidential race by informing Congress that agents had found new emails potentially pertinent to Hillary Clinton's email investigation. Then two days before Election Day, after more than 40 million people voted early, he said never mind. Donald Trump won the Electoral College and the White House, though it appears Clinton will win the popular vote. Did Comey tip the race to Trump?

"We'll never know exactly," says Carl Bialik at FiveThirtyEight, "but we do know that her lead in polls fell by about 3 percentage points after the letter — and Democrats likely won't soon forget that." Nate Silver noted that "whatever your feelings about the state of the country right now, it's fundamentally not that different a place whether the final call is that Clinton has narrowly won or narrowly lost. Add just 1 percent to Clinton's vote share and take 1 percent away from Trump's, and she would have won Florida and Pennsylvania, therefore would probably have been on her way to a narrow Electoral College victory."

At The New York Times, Adam Nagourney asked whether Trump's campaign actually believed that there was a hidden white vote that could propel him to victory, and political reporter Maggie Haberman said that no, most of them did not. "Comey appears to have done Clinton real damage," she added. Trump's team "knew they got lucky with Comey. Even earlier this evening most of them thought he would lose."

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Whether or not Comey was a crucial factor in Clinton's apparent loss, Democrats won't be happy with his 11th-hour reappearance — but since they won't control either house of Congress, Comey probably doesn't have much to worry about.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.