Positive vs Negative campaign marketing.

Regardless of which candidate you feel matched up best vs Trump; there are other aspects of the campaign that need to be discussed.

One that I think has been sorely neglected has been the approach to how candidates presented themselves to the public on a slew of issues.
While Trump almost certainly wasted no time bashing Clinton whenever possible, what he did do was unanimously declare he would "do things"; build a wall, register all Muslims, etc. This is opposed to much of the Democratic, which centered around how awful every aspect of Trump was.

My assertion is that voters, particularly those who feel abandoned by economic changes, responded strongly to the candidate who promised action; whatever that may have been. The Democratic marketing of "Lets not do all of these awful ideas" was less resounding as these voters were looking for literally ANY change.

Another aspect of this difference in marketing strategy was that attacks on Trump objectively didn't motivate the Democratic base to GOTV. This was one of the lowest turnout elections in quite some time, and we ALWAYS win high turnout elections. Far more people agree with Democratic economic and social policies, they simply need to be galvanized to be driven to the polls and from the data this election has provided, its obvious negative marketing doesn't do that.

I think its more effective to play up what Democrats will do if elected (clean energy jobs, rebuilding infrastructure, strengthening social safety net) as opposed to simply saying were not the party of pussy grabbers, because all that statement says is that we're slightly better then pond scum which isn't particularly motivating.