SURE SHOT

Even Russian Trolls Thought Trump Would Lose Election 2016

Kremlin propagandists tried to delegitimize a Clinton win.

The 2016 election of Donald Trump confounded the prediction of pollsters, pundits—and Kremlin trolls, too. A Daily Beast investigation—scouring more than 6.5 million Election Day tweets—shows that Russian propagandists spent last Nov. 8 trying to undermine the legitimacy of the election rather than simply pushing for their favorite candidate. “BREAKING : Mass Election Fraud, Voting Irregularities and Discrimination Against Trump Voters Reported,” read one tweet among thousands. It was only later in the evening, when Trump started winning battleground states, that the Russians changed their tune. In the words of one: “See how your democracy works?”