2016 U.S. Presidential Election That Elected Trump

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election That Elected Trump placed Megan Twohey’s reporting on Donald Trump’s alleged conduct against a public choice whose outcome few at the time expected. On November 7, Megan traveled to polling places in Park Ridge, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago and Hillary Clinton’s hometown, to capture what many believed would be the election of the first woman president. She was not there to advocate for a candidate. Instead, the day became a revealing measure of how little the allegations that had shaped her reporting appeared to matter to many voters, even as women were beginning to speak publicly about mistreatment by powerful men.

The campaign and the reporting

The book situates the election within a contradiction: women had entered professions and positions of authority once largely closed to them, yet sexual harassment remained routine in many workplaces, and those who spoke up were often dismissed or isolated. Men accused of misconduct could continue to accumulate success and public praise. Megan had reported on women who alleged that Trump preyed on them, then had to cover his rise to the presidency. The election therefore followed a campaign in which allegations about a candidate’s treatment of women were already part of the public record, but did not determine how many voters chose.

In May 2016, Megan and a colleague published a New York Times investigation in which women described alleged misconduct by Trump in their own words. The article included Trump’s denials and his insistence that he had treated women with respect. Its reporting also illustrates the verification that preceded publication: Megan assembled allegations beyond one highly publicized claim, while the team excluded another woman’s account after a colleague could not confirm a key detail with her father. The article became the Times’ most-read political article of that year up to that point. Its reception showed that the allegations could command broad attention, but attention was not the same as electoral consequence.

Megan at the polling place

The editors sent Megan to Park Ridge partly for the symbolism of the possible historic result. Her earlier reporting had also examined Hillary Clinton’s role in responding to women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual impropriety. Although Clinton’s allies argued that her role had been limited, Megan found evidence that she had approved hiring a private detective to seek damaging information about the women. By including this reporting, the book presents Megan’s election coverage as independent of either campaign: she was not expected to shield the Democratic nominee while scrutinizing Trump.

Megan expected to encounter concern about Trump’s alleged conduct and his recorded remarks on the Access Hollywood tape. In interviews with voters, however, very few of the suburban white women she spoke with appeared to care much about either. The disparity between her expectation and what she heard was consequential: the allegations had been reported, discussed, and amplified, yet they did not seem to carry the weight she anticipated among these voters. That observation is limited to the people she interviewed at the polling place; it does not establish what all women, or the electorate as a whole, thought.

That night, Megan already knew Trump had been elected. The outcome overturned the expectation of a first woman president and made the election a personal reporting moment as well as a national result. The book does not claim that voters’ responses to the allegations alone explain the outcome. Rather, it records the gap between a growing public conversation about women’s experiences and the apparent indifference Megan encountered in one setting. In the weeks before the election, women had used #WhyWomenDontReport to describe similar experiences with other men. Rose McGowan was among those speaking online about a studio head who had violated her. These accounts formed a rising chorus, but their visibility did not prevent Trump’s victory.

From electoral outcome to investigative opening

The book places the election in a longer sequence rather than treating it as the cause of the later Weinstein investigation. After Trump’s victory, Megan and Jodi Kantor watched a series of developments that changed how newsrooms approached workplace harassment. In April 2017, The New York Times exposed settlements involving Bill O’Reilly and Fox News. The reporting showed how lawyers, negotiations, and payments could leave a trace even when agreements were intended to keep allegations quiet. Advertisers withdrew, other women at Fox complained, and O’Reilly was fired. The institution’s response to public exposure, rather than the claims being entirely unknown beforehand, became part of the story.

Times editors saw the O’Reilly reporting as a possible model for investigating other powerful men and the systems that concealed harassment. Rebecca Corbett asked Jodi to examine both individual perpetrators and the broader role of settlements. When Jodi sought advice, Megan discussed why women such as Jessica Leeds and Rachel Crooks had come forward and how careful first conversations with potential sources could make the risk of speaking feel purposeful. The pitch she suggested centered on the possibility that sharing an experience might help protect others. That reporting approach helped shape the work that led to the investigation of Harvey Weinstein; it did not arise from the election alone.

Significance and limits

The election’s significance in the book lies in its contrast between exposure and accountability. Megan had helped bring allegations about Trump into public view, and women were speaking online about comparable experiences, but the reporting did not produce the political result she had expected many voters to weigh. The account resists a simple story in which public speech immediately changes power. A campaign can make allegations visible without making them decisive to voters, while later journalism may build on earlier reporting methods, accumulated sources, and sustained feminist and legal advocacy.

The subsequent Weinstein reporting and the wider #MeToo wave are presented as the result of several forces converging over time, including the work of activists such as Anita Hill and Tarana Burke and journalists beyond Megan and Jodi. The election thus marks neither the beginning nor the end of that broader reckoning. It is a point of contrast: a highly visible set of allegations coexisted with a decisive electoral outcome, while the later investigations showed how documented patterns, public testimony, and institutional scrutiny could create different forms of consequence.