(CNN)When historians look back at the 2016 election, there will likely be many big mysteries to solve.
More than many other election in recent history, this heated contest included a number of bizarre game-changing moments that seemed to swing the race in dramatic new directions. And weeks after the election's surprising outcome, people are still debating what produced the result.
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The Trump campaign featured an overwhelming barrage of angry and derogatory messages about women, about immigrants and about Muslims. The campaign also brought into the open anti-Semitic rhetoric and reactionary talk about race relations. Yet since the election, as experts sort though the data, there has been some pushback from observers who point out that many Trump supporters did not support him because of these messages. Rather, the argument goes, they wanted someone who could help the economy, they liked his personality or attitude, they just wanted to keep voting Republican or they didn't think much of Hillary Clinton. Even CNN analyst Van Jones, who had been especially emotional in attacking Trump for his dangerous vitriol, is now reminding his viewers that there was much more to the Trump vote.
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So how much was the hate a driving part of this electoral outcome? This is a very important question, not only to better understand this election but to understand what's going on in the electorate. It would be a mistake to discount the possibility that many voters were just fine with his rhetoric, and even agreed with what he said. We need to know.
Did voter fraud laws suppress and discourage voting in key states like Wisconsin? Voting-rights experts like Ari Berman and Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center had been warning for months that all of the voting-fraud measures added to the books in the last few years would discourage voters from turning out. Based on spurious allegations of massive voting fraud, a number of states responded to the Supreme Court's evisceration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Shelby V. Holder (2013) by placing more prohibitions and barriers to exercising the right to vote. They also warned that these laws would fall hardest on minority groups who might not have the proper identification or would come to fear just showing up at the voting booth even though they had no reason to do so. This was the first post-Voting Rights Act election, they reminded us. Trump added to his atmosphere by whipping up his supporters with fears of rigged elections and calling on them to go out in states like Pennsylvania to monitor against fraud.
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