How Trump won: the figures

It is a victory that could change the face of American politics. Yesterday (Tuesday), in a result few predicted, Donald Trump cleared a resounding path to the presidency in the Electoral College, though he may have lost the popular vote by a small margin—47.5 per cent to Hillary Clinton’s 47.7 per cent. He did so by holding reliably “red” Republican states and making deep incursions into “blue” Democratic territory too, remaking the electoral map and pulling off a dramatic upset that will resound in political history.

Clinton went into yesterday’s election with a supposedly formidable advantage: the “blue wall” of 18 states that had reliably voted Democratic since the 1990s. It included states in America’s declining industrial heartland like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where the 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, had fared poorly. But Trump plucked those states from Hillary Clinton’s grasp amid strong turnout from white working-class voters, with whom his angry, anti-establishment message had resonated most strongly.

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were among the biggest shocks of the night, but Trump’s victory in Ohio—a battleground state that had been leaning in his direction—was particularly emphatic. Trump gained more than 52 per cent of the vote in Ohio, winning a state that had voted for President Barack Obama in 2012. He also gained nearly 52 per cent in Iowa, a nearby Midwestern state which had voted for Obama by the same margin in 2012. It was closer in Florida, where he won with 49.1 per cent—deemed by pundits a “must-win” state for Trump with its large population and 29 Electoral College votes.

Winning Florida was supposed to be Trump’s only real path to 270 Electoral Votes—the majority needed to secure victory. But his success in other swing states, like North Carolina, and notably Pennsylvania, gave him far more paths to victory in the end. The final Electoral College vote will likely be 306 for Trump, compared to 232 for Clinton—actually fewer than the projected 242 her “blue wall” should have given her.

It appears that turnout was actually lower than expected, but exit polls suggesting demographic breakdowns are only beginning to come in. These might be the only polls in which Americans have faith moving forward, since most established polling models predicted a narrow Clinton victory, albeit one within the margin of error. What the exit polls suggest so far is that Trump held a substantial advantage among white voters, among men, and among older voters. According to New York Times data, 67 per cent of whites without a college degree supported Trump—higher than their 62 per cent support for Mitt Romney four years ago.

Clinton enjoyed a substantial advantage among Hispanic and Latino voters—though contrary to expectation, their support was not as overwhelming as had been predicted on the basis of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. The New York Times suggests that 65 per cent of Hispanics and Latinos supported Clinton—that’s actually lower than the 71 per cent who backed Obama in 2012. It’s also lower than the 88 per cent of African-Americans who supported Clinton. But again, this was also down from the support shown for Obama—who gained 96 per cent of the African-American vote in 2008, and 93 per cent in 2012. Similarly, while Trump won 53 per cent of male voters, slightly more than Mitt Romney four years ago, Clinton’s 54 per cent support among women voters was slightly less than Obama’s in 2012. It appears that Clinton was unable to generate the overwhelming support from women and minorities that might have pushed her over the top.

Below the presidential level, Republicans held onto their majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives, sustaining only slight losses in each chamber. That means Trump enters office on January 20^th, 2017, with his party in full control of Congress—something Barack Obama has lacked for the last six years of his administration. It presents Trump with a chance to push his agenda on immigration, international trade, and national security—all intended to “Make America Great Again.”

Trump’s one-time primary opponent, Marco Rubio, was re-elected to the Senate from Florida, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, easily won his re-election bid in Wisconsin. Ryan has famously clashed with Trump over the course of the campaign, so it remains to be seen how unified the Republican Party will be in enacting Trump’s proposals. Whether Ryan will even retain the Speakership is unclear, as Trump allies in Congress may seek political retribution. Whoever takes the Republican leadership positions, though, the President-Elect now has the structural advantages, and the apparent popular mandate, to make dramatic changes in American policy—at home and abroad.