Analysis:: When reality set in for Clinton supporters

Hillary Clinton had been leading all along. Or that's what the polls said for months, and thus what the poll-tracking sites said for months. That's part of the story of tonight: the mood of mild certainty that had rippled through Clinton supporters' friend circles and their Facebook feeds. It had given Democrats the deceptive feeling of a tailwind as they glided out of the final years of the Obama administration. That's all gone now.

For the last year, and especially after the Bernie Sanders primary scare, Clinton-supporting Democrats have warded off thoughts of a Donald Trump presidency by pausing for purifying check-ins at FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times' Upshot. They stared at the poll numbers for reassurance, as if they were magic runes that told of good fortune. Some of the numbers told of better fortune than others, but the numbers never told of disaster. The television images of Trump's energetic crowds troubled and irritated them. But in the cold data, Clinton's supporters found confidence. They received soothing intelligence informing them of Clinton's few-point lead, her formidable ground game, the electoral advantage of the Democratic firewall.

In the home stretch, FBI head James Comey certainly gave them a scare. He infuriated them by reporting there were new emails that needed to be investigated. But in the days before the election brought the return of confidence. Comey said the messages were duplicates; Clinton would not face prosecution for using a private email server as secretary of State. Early voter turnout soared, and again, Democrats staring at their phones and their computers found news that calmed them. They saw reports of stunning Latino turnout. It hinted of an even greater electoral wipeout, somehow missed by the pollsters. Perhaps Clinton's supporters had not been confident enough.

Election morning came Tuesday, and their Instagram and Facebook feeds were filled with images of women dressing in white to honor the suffragists. They saw unusually earnest status updates that elaborated why Clinton, however imperfect, was the necessary and urgent choice. They saw images of an incredible line of women in New York to see Susan B. Anthony's grave, her tombstone blanketed in "I Voted" stickers like lipstick kisses on Oscar Wilde's grave. And then they waited for the polls to close, for the true numbers to reveal themselves at last, wondering how the decisive win would reveal itself.

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Florida. Why does it always seem to be Florida? The early numbers showed Trump performing stubbornly well in a state that has often served as an electoral fulcrum, tipping the nation Republican or Democratic. Democrats told themselves not to worry. The returns from the big cities would come in late, and when they did, they would come in heavily for Clinton. But then the newscasters told them about the turnout in the red counties, Trump surpassing Mitt Romney's 2012 numbers with poorer, lesser-educated white voters. The Latino turnout suddenly didn't seem so formidable. At one point Clinton and Trump were separated by only 28 votes in the Sunshine State, briefly mentally resummoning the 2000 recount like a dreaded Lazarus, but then Trump marched ahead and never looked back.

The bleeding spread across the Eastern Seaboard, and then it spread across the Midwest. Trump claimed his red states instantly, and the swing states refused to bless Clinton with any favors. Virginia, the home state of Clinton running mate Tim Kaine, thought to be more of a lock for her, took a stubbornly long time to go blue. And as Clinton's crisis spread and financial markets plummeted, all those months of numbers showing Clinton with the lead had turned out to be lies, terrible lies. The Upshot's election-prediction meters, their needles jiggling like the gauges on a World War II bomber, wobbled from left to right, now pointing toward a decisive Trump victory for the first time in the campaign.

And then Clinton supporters, and the others who opposed Trump, people of color, Muslims, immigrants, and members of the LGBT community began to shiver in disbelief, and to mourn.

And to smolder.

Email: matt.pearce@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter: @mattdpearce

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