In the article "Is Hillary dishonest and Donald narcissistic? A HEXACO analysis of the presidential candidates' public personas," we had expert raters use the HEXACO Personality Inventory to evaluate the public personalities of the two 2016 American presidential candidates. In this case study, we discuss the development of this research project as well as our problem-solving around issues such as potential sampling bias. We describe the limitations of personality questionnaires as well as our decision to evaluate the public rather than private personalities of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump