WORKING-CLASS WOES
These voters spoke with a shout, particularly in Rust Belt states that have mostly favored Democrats in recent elections. Non-college-educated whites made up about a third of the electorate nationally, but they accounted for more than 4 in 10 voters in Wisconsin, Penns-ylvania and Ohio and made up fully half of all voters in Iowa.
RURAL OOMPH
Democratic candidates have long worked to stockpile votes in urban centers to offset the more conservative electorate in America’s small towns and rural areas. Clinton won about 6 out of 10 votes in cities with more than 50,000 residents; Trump won about 60 per cent of votes in small towns and rural areas.
RACIAL POLARISATION
The white vote has shrunk in recent years — from about 80 per cent in 1996 to 70 per cent of Tuesday’s vote — but that’s still a powerful number. Trump dominated with whites no matter how you dice their votes — among men and women, young and old, college-educated and non-college-educated.
ELECTORAL COLLEGE
In the end, it didn’t matter that Clinton was on track to win more popular votes than Trump nationally. Her voters were too geographically concentrated to save her where it mattered most, in battleground states that tipped to Trump by small margins to produce a lopsided victory in electoral votes.
With three states too close to call, Trump led Clinton 279-228 in electoral votes. In the popular vote, Clinton was leading 47.7 per cent to 47.5 per cent, or by about 2,36,000 votes.
