Hot potatoes, NDAs, and Comey squared! Welcome back to our 2016 retrospective on the most-trafficked posts at Hot Air. Today we review the posts that rank 50th through 41st in terms of page views this year, and as you’ll see, they all pertain in some way to the big story of the year — the presidential election. From baskets of deplorables to media coverage of Hillary Clinton in all the worst ways, this list encapsulates the lowlights of the year:

• #50: Yikes: MSNBC “unskews” the CNN poll showing Trump up by two points (9/6/2016) – We thought that “unskewing” had been discredited, but leave it to MSNBC to resurrect it for the brief moment when polls actually foreshadowed the outcome … in the Electoral College, anyway. This was when Trump was just coming back from self-inflicted damage after the convention.
• #49: Video: Hillary Clinton is finally confronted with her classified data non-disclosure agreement (1/31/2016) – Don’t get too excited. If you’ll recall this moment from eleven months ago, Hillary admitted that she signed the document, and then argued that it only applied to documents with markings on them — which the NDA explicitly rejects.  Jazz says his niece offered more logical arguments over missing Christmas cookies, but for Democrats, this was as good as it got on the e-mail scandal.
• #48: After last night, is there any way realistically that Trump doesn’t win Florida? (3/6/2016) – Allahpundit asked this about the Republican primary, but in retrospect the question applied to the general election, too — and the answer was No. Even when Donald Trump underperformed, his opponents couldn’t take advantage of it in either phase of the election.
• #47: Breaking: FBI reopening Hillary e-mail probe; Update: Trump reacts; Update: Tied to … Anthony Weiner; Update: Podesta demands full transparency from FBI (10/28/2016) – The second of James Comey’s unpleasant surprises, this one hit Democrats hardest. Did this notification from the FBI Director change the course of the election? Hillary Clinton says yes yes yes, but voters say … not really. Still, as October surprises go, this one was a real, um … cat grabber. Speaking of which …
• #46: The non-cat grabbing, second presidential debate live blog (10/9/2016) – “This. Is. War,” Jazz wrote when Hillary attacked Trump for his p****-grab comments, and Trump responded by pledging to get a special prosecutor to look into Hillary’s e-mail and Clinton Foundation scandals. “You’d be in jail,” Trump told Hillary about how he’d handle it if he was president. We’ll see.
• #45: The very short, unhappy MSNBC career of Stephanie Cutter (3/19/2016) – If you don’t recall the Stephanie Cutter era at MSNBC, it’s because it only lasted a few hours. The cable channel cut her loose after Politico and the Washington Post raised questions about having one of Obama’s activists on the payroll as an “analyst.” CNN didn’t seem to have that much of an issue keeping Corey Lewandowski around during the general election, though.
• #44: Will “Basket of Deplorables” become the new “47 Percent”? (9/10/2016) – As it turns out, it did become Hillary’s “47 Percent” in this election. At the time, I argued that it deserved to become an albatross around her neck more than Romney’s comment did in 2012, but that the media would do everything it could to keep that from happening. This time, they failed — and Hillary’s lack of effort in connecting with these voters was almost certainly the reason why.
• #43: Glenn Beck: I’ll drop Ted Cruz like a hot potato if these affair allegations are true (3/28/2016) – As AP explained, Beck made that argument to emphasize how little credibility he put into a sleazy attack from the National Enquirer on Cruz. They never did come through with evidence to support this despicable smear, nor did it turn out to have any impact on the election. It was a useless attack that only served to remind us of the ethics of all involved.
• #42: Hmmm: FBI Director to meet press, take off-camera questions at 11; Update: Matter will go to DoJ for “prosecutive decision”; Update: Will not recommend criminal charges; Update: Comey speech added (7/5/2016) – The first of Comey’s surprises had Republicans crying foul rather than Democrats, who initially lauded Comey as a non-partisan bastion of integrity. “Time until Team Hillary starts hailing this as a vindication: 30 minutes or less,” I wrote during this live-blog of the presser, and that brings us to …
• #41: Watch the reaction as CNN’s Chris Cuomo claims Hillary Clinton “did nothing illegal” (7/21/2016) – As Jazz explains, that’s not what Comey said, but it’s certainly the spin that Team Hillary put on it. Comey said that they couldn’t show enough intent for a successful prosecution, not that nothing illegal took place. Yet here’s Cuomo on CNN claiming Hillary did nothing illegal at all as an answer to criticism over her e-mail server scandal, countering Carl Bernstein’s assessment of it as “indefensible.” Hey, nothing a Clinton does is ever indefensible with our national media, Carl!

Stay tuned tomorrow for our next ten entries on the year-end list! Baby, it was cold outside for traditional holiday songs, for top aides of a governor, and for a Vox editor cheerleading riots — but warm enough for one more post from 2015 to crack the top slots in 2016. Don’t miss it!