Esquire Gathers the Untold Stories of Election Day 2016

Magazine gathered 40 interviews from across politics and the media to document the moment.

November 6, 2017 12:49 pm

For decades, politicians and members of the media were able to process the narrative of the stories they told every day. But then, on November 8, 2016, that narrative unraveled before their eyes. Esquire writes that in a space of 24 hours, “the concept of ‘conventional wisdom’ seemed to vanish for good.”

So Esquire gathered 40 interviews from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and more, in order to tell the story of that day. They also spoke to people who had first-hand accounts of the campaigns as well. Check out a few of the responses below.

Steve Bannon 

Bannon, Trump campaign CEO, told Esquire that when he first joined the campaign, he told Trump “You have a hundred-percent chance of winning.”

Jim Margolis

Margolis was Clinton’s campaign senior adviser. He told Esquire that he was “absolutely certain we were going to win.”

Dave Weigel 

Weigel writes for The Washington Post. He told Esquire that he called Senator Jeff Flake the Sunday before the election to tell Flake that he had questions lined up if Hillary wins and questions lined up if Trump wins. According to Weigel, Flake started laughing and said, “Why would you bother asking the second one?”

Senator Tim Kaine 

Kaine was the Democratic vice presidential candidate. He told Esquire that even though he thought they were going to win, he was “more wary” because the U.S. had never elected a woman president and “still has a poor track record of electing women to federal office.”

Zara Rahim 

Rahim was Clinton’s campaign national spokesperson, and she said that they were all just waiting for the coronation. “I was planning my Instagram caption,” she told Esquire. 

Maggie Haberman 

Haberman, a well-known political reporter for The New York Times, told Esquire that she was getting “bewildered texts” from her kids who were asking her what happened because they couldn’t sleep. “I think this election was really difficult for kids to process.”

Read the rest of the reactions through the link below.

 

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