Trump triumphs, but who voted for him?

The American people have voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, right? Wrong.

On latest figures 59,821,874 or 47.4% of the eligible voting population voted for Trump. Hillary Clinton attracted 60,121.876 votes, or 47.7%. That’s around 300,000 more. In a democratic system where all votes have equal value, we’d be celebrating a win for Secretary Clinton. [See Update 1 below]

Wikipedia shows turnout down from 54.9% to 51.3%. So only 24.4% of the eligible voting population of 245.273 million in fact voted for Trump, or around 30% of registered voters.

The real ‘deplorables’ are the people who didn’t vote. Trump got fewer votes than Mitt Romney in 2012.

This ABC article shows how close it was. Trump looks like winning 306 electoral college seats, or 26 more than he needed. However, a small matter of 107,330 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would have given Clinton the White House. Antony Green called the election when Wisconsin fell. I understand Clinton got thumped by Bernie Sanders in the pre-selections in Wisconsin. Yet she never once went there during the campaign. Green’s conclusion was that she lost essentially in the mid-west rust-belt states.

The essential error seemed to be chasing minority voters and better educated votes in the battleground states, and going after some states that were traditionally Republican, neglecting her ‘firewall’ of states that has traditionally voted Democrat, but happened to include voters in the rust belt who had been left behind.

It was not a ‘silent majority’ that turned the election. It was some very specific demographics that Clinton had no message for.

The New York Times has graphics showing support for the last four elections from exit polls in the important demographics. The main shift in this election came from whites with no college degrees.

At the same time Clinton’s support amongst minorities fell short:

    African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans overwhelmingly backed Mrs. Clinton, but their level of support for her was less than their support of President Obama four years ago.

Trump gained among men and barely lost ground with women. A majority of white women (53%, I think) voted for him.

CNN also has exit polling information. Those aged 18-29 chose Clinton 54-37, while the 45+ group went to Trump 53-44.

There are all sorts of narratives with some truth in them. A feminist analysis talked of white male capitalism, as the hegemonic view accepted also by white women.

There is a story, I think on personal suitability. After the third debate the election favoured Clinton, because Trump had shown himself manifestly unsuitable, and Clinton was seen as a safe pair of hands. That exploded when the FBI intervened, reminding people, unfairly, that Clinton was, by reputation if not fact, secretive, reckless, and untrustworthy. From that time I understand Trump’s aides kept him away from attacking Clinton personally and on message about what mattered in people eyes – the need for a new approach to a broken system, for real change, for draining the swamp, and exploding politics as usual in the way only a powerful outsider can. Or so it seemed.

Hillary, by contrast was defensive and had nothing new to offer. Trump said he was going to make America great again; Clinton said America already was great.

More broadly, though Naomi Klein nails it:

    They will blame James Comey and the FBI. They will blame voter suppression and racism. They will blame Bernie or bust and misogyny. They will blame third parties and independent candidates. They will blame the corporate media for giving him the platform, social media for being a bullhorn, and WikiLeaks for airing the laundry.

    But this leaves out the force most responsible for creating the nightmare in which we now find ourselves wide awake: neoliberalism. That worldview – fully embodied by Hillary Clinton and her machine – is no match for Trump-style extremism. The decision to run one against the other is what sealed our fate. If we learn nothing else, can we please learn from that mistake?

    Here is what we need to understand: a hell of a lot of people are in pain. Under neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatisation, austerity and corporate trade, their living standards have declined precipitously. They have lost jobs. They have lost pensions. They have lost much of the safety net that used to make these losses less frightening. They see a future for their kids even worse than their precarious present.

    At the same time, they have witnessed the rise of the Davos class, a hyper-connected network of banking and tech billionaires, elected leaders who are awfully cosy with those interests, and Hollywood celebrities who make the whole thing seem unbearably glamorous.

Thankyou John D for the link.

Thing is you have to be in the top 5% to be a politician on the national stage in the USA, and wealth changes people. They become less emotionally able, less empathetic and less ethical.

But somehow we need a new politics of the left, an issue addressed by Tim Dunlop, Jeremy Corbyn, Wayne Swan and others.

Meanwhile we’ll await to see how Trump’s magic pudding economic miracle unfolds. The money markets, I think, are expecting volatility.

Update 1: When I wrote the post I didn’t know how complete the count was, but commentators were talking as though it was all but done. The figures have jumped around a bit, and I’ll correct this update when it’s all finished.

However, more eligible voters have appeared in the Wikipedia link, and more votes have been counted. The current state of play is that turnout was 50.45%, Clinton has now 630,976 more than Trump, and Trump’s votes are now a flat 24% of eligible voters.

Update 2: I forgot to mention, the race figures are 70% white, 12% black, 11% Latino, and 4% Asian.

Whites are down 2% since 2012, but are still the vast majority. White people without a college degree is where the numbers were.

Update 3: Ootz pointed out that Sanders beat Clinton in the primaries in a series of states that fell to Trump.

This is how the election panned out. If Trump takes Michigan, and Clinton takes New Hampshire as expected, Trump will win 306 to 232. This is what the map looks like:

electoral-college-result_b_capture_600

This is the result of a putative Sanders-Trump match up:

sanders_atimap-768x585_600

This does not mean Sanders would have won, of course, but Democrats must be wondering what if…

Update 4: Ambigulous pointed to a story by David Wong How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind.

To put his message gently, 62% of the population lives in cities, and the Democrat vote is largely locked up in cites where they win by large margins. Here’s the electoral voting map county by county:

city-v-country_577531_v1

And Illinois went to Clinton 55.4% to 39.4% largely because of Chicago:

illinois_577532_v1

Again, putting it gently, it’s a deep cultural divide.

Update 5: Wikipedia has an article on the ‘spoiler effect’, where a third candidate draws votes off one of the main candidates allowing the other to win. It’s happened many times, Ross Perot in 1992, Ralph Nader in 2000, and now at Wikipedia for some reason they’ve added Gary Johnson and Jill Stein as denying Hillary Clinton victory!

The justification perhaps comes in looking at the votes in Michigan (16 college votes), Wisconsin (10) and Pennsylvania (20). That’s 46 college votes that could have gone to Clinton with preferential voting, giving her 278. The combined difference is 107,330. Then there’s Utah with 10.

Update 6: Michael Moore famously picked Trump before the election in a piece 5 reasons why Trump will win. The first is the rust-belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania – their 64 college votes would have been enough without Florida and a few others.

Yes, and Hillary was a problem in herself.

I can’t say I disagree with any of his comments.

29 thoughts on “Trump triumphs, but who voted for him?”

  1. So were still relying on polling and analysis post election, by the same mob that got it so wrong pre-election.
    Good luck with that.

  2. One way to look at it.

    “”When examining the 13 states Hillary Clinton lost twice — the states Trump won side-by-side with the states Bernie Sanders won during the Democratic primary — the similarities are striking. The GOP nominee likely saw this, and tweeted in May that he was relieved to not have to face Sanders in the general election:””

    I would rather run against Crooked Hillary Clinton than Bernie Sanders and that will happen because the books are cooked against Bernie!

  3. “got it so wrong pre-election”

    Jumpy the polls had Clinton on 48.5%. She got 47.7% – actually not bad.

    The polls had Trump on 44.9% and he got 47.4%. That’s 2.5% more and probably within the margin of error.

    The misfiring was exacerbated because Clinton was over-estimated, and Trump underestimated.

    Their problems are exacerbated by two general factors. One is that they have to try to find out whether the respondent is actually going to vote.

    The second is the possibility of a ‘reverse Bradley effect’. In simple terms, respondents did not want to admit they were going to vote for Trump. There was talk about it before the election, and the Trumpsters were counting on it.

    Another factor is that the pollsters possibly didn’t do polls in the socalled firewall states, so they missed the main event.

  4. Ootz, that’s gold! Of course we don’t know what kind of shite would have been dumped on Bernie, and what effect that would have had.

    Another fact I forgot to mention, the race figures are 70% white, 12% black, 11% Latino, and 4% Asian.

    Whites are down 2% since 2012, but are still the vast majority. The effect of the minority vote may have been overestimated.

  5. Interesting Ootz, but quite hypothetical.
    Primaries aren’t a general election; those have Senate, House contests as well as local candidates and possibly single-issue referenda.

    General point, that huge numbers of voters are annoyed by “business as usual”, stands. Many possible reasons. Motivation to vote, is obviously a big factor in American elections.

    Much-vaunted “better ground game”, overcome by Trump’s appeal, and widespread loathing of Secretary Clinton.

    Brian, I think a potent portion of “shite” would have been Bernie’s self-proclaimed democratic socialism. Appealing to yoof, no doubt, and to critics of Wall Street/plutocracy.

    But the fiercest storms against Obama raged around his (allegedly) socialist medical insurance. That’s hard to believe in the land of Medicare and PBS, but it appears potent in U.S.

    And recall the disastrous George McGovern tilt. I believe his earlier support for candidate Wallace (independent, 1948, strongly supported by CPUSA*) cost McGovern dearly.

    The Communist can was kicked for decades. Imagine what a kicking the democratic socialist can would have copped!

    * yes, Virginia, America had a Communist Party too.

  6. Daughter just sent a link to article in cracked.com
    “How Half of America Lost Its F**king Mind” by David Wong.

    Well worth reading: rural/urban divide…… in the sombre detail only someone with the lived experience could provide.

    Warning: NSFW.

  7. Yes, here it is. Definitely one way of looking at it.

    Except it’s more like a third than a half.

    They still seem to be counting, and Clinton’s popular vote is now 566,000 ahead. Won’t do her any good, but the turnout is better than first thought.

  8. Any minute now the media will mock and lambast the people not excepting the Election result.
    Condemning them as disrespecting democracy!!
    Oh wait, same people…..

  9. Internally what the US needed was a dose of someone like Sanders backed by Democrat majorities in both congress and the senate.
    Externally I am not sure that the world needed an isolationist like Sanders. I am inclined to think that Clinton would be better although Trump’s insanity power may actually get better results as long as it is cunning insanity.
    The Trump victory may be good for Australia because it is a warning to the neoliberals in Labor and the LNP that you can’t ignore the losers from their policies (Lesson to the Greens as well.) and what happened to the parties of the working class when it gets too close to the wrong end of town.

  10. Labels and impressions do matter – perhaps a lot more than actual performance, policies and plans. Just look at how we Australians kept re-electing two of our worst prime ministers: Menzies and Howard; I would have added Hawke but thankfully the Keating stopped us repeating our folly.

    Bernie Sanders is in politics. That gives him a license to lie like a pig in shxx. Why the hell didn’t he deny any socialism at all nowadays and, instead, push himself forward as the ONLY one who would deliver Jobs!, Justice!, Recovery!, Progress! ?

  11. Labels and impressions do matter – perhaps a lot more than actual performance, policies and plans. Just look at how we Australians kept re-electing two of our worst prime ministers: Menzies and Howard; I would have added Hawke but thankfully the Keating stopped us repeating our follies with that dud.

    Bernie Sanders is in politics. That gives him a license to lie like a pig in shxx. Why the hell didn’t he deny any socialism at all nowadays and, instead, push himself forward as the ONLY one who would deliver Jobs!, Justice!, Recovery!, Progress! ?

  12. Another angle on the polls is that private pollsters rely on accuracy for new work, so there was a mysterious convergence at the death. No-one wanted to be an outlier.

    Prof Allan Lichtmann called the election correctly, using a different system, not polls, which he says has got it right every time since 1984, except 2000.

    Now he says Trump will be impeached, based on a gut feeling, because the GOP prefer a stright up and down president like Mike Pence, who they can control.

    He has this message for the Democrats:

    As for the real reason for Trump’s win, Lichtman says the blame can’t be put on Hillary Clinton or her campaign — rather, he says, it was decided by the larger forces that shape American politics.

    “The Democrats cannot rebuild by pointing fingers at Hillary Clinton and her campaign, which as the Keys demonstrated, were not the root cause of her defeat,” he said. “The Democrats can rehabilitate themselves only by offering an inspiring progressive alternative to Republican policies and building a grass-roots movement.”

    Which is roughly what Naomi Klein is saying.

  13. When I wrote the post I didn’t know how complete the count was, but commentators were talking as though it was all but done. The figures have jumped around a bit, and I’ll do a corrected update on the post when it’s all finished.

    However, more eligible voters have appeared in the Wikipedia link, more votes have been counted. The current state of play is that turnout was 50.45%, Clinton has now 630,976 more than Trump, and Trump’s votes are now a flat 24% of eligible voters.

  14. In 92 Bill got in with 37.1% over GHWB with 40.6%.
    Trump now has 47.3 % to HRC 47.8%.

    Any illegitimacy arguments have to be retrospective and compared.

  15. Of course, Jumpy, it’s known as the ‘spoiler effect’. It’s happened many times, Ross Perot in 1992, Ralph Nader in 2000, and now at Wikipedia for some reason they’ve added Gary Johnson and Jill Stein as denying Hillary Clinton victory!

    Who would have thunk it!

    Doesn’t make it democratic just because it’s legal.

  16. I’ve added some updates to the post, to show how the map looks, the putative Sanders vote, and the city v country thing.

  17. Yeh, the Country folk must be shaking their heads at the majority Dem city folk rioting, burning The Flag and abusing everyone that voted different to them, wondering how that demonstrates and promotes harmony, love and tolerance.

    A couple of week from now they’ll calm down.

    I note that the tiny stockmarket dip was blamed on Trump through very MMS outlet, but the huge bounce since hasn’t got much attention leave alone credit to Thrump. Hmmmm…

  18. I note that the tiny stockmarket dip was blamed on Trump through very MMS outlet, but the huge bounce since hasn’t got much attention leave alone credit to Thrump. Hmmmm…

    Before the election he said he was going to rip up NAFTA and start a trade war with China. So the Peso tanked, and the markets that were open took a sizeable hit.

    Then he came out talking peace and love and said he would double growth and spend a mozza on infrastructure. The markets believed him, which shows how stupid they are. Both these moves were directly attributable to Trump. If anyone says otherwise they are totally dumb.

    If you heard Shane Wright talking to Patricia Karvelas, you’d know that Trump’s infrastructure plans will increase debt from 70% of GDP to 120% of GDP. He’s talking the same strategy that failed for Reagan.

    BTW the effective corporate tax rate in the US is only 18%, not the nominal 35%. To get it down to 15% he’ll have to wrestle back a lot of concessions and it will still cost a mozza.

  19. Just a couple of things, on this thread.

    If you want to follow the ‘spoiler effect’ theme, have a look at the votes in Michigan (16 college votes), Wisconsin (10) and Pennsylvania (20). That’s 46 college votes that could have gone to Clinton with preferential voting, giving her 278. Then there’s Utah with 10.

    Secondly, I heard an interview with the political correspondent of The Guardian (UK) who had contacts inside the Trump camp. He said at 8.30pm on Tuesday they were into finger-pointing and starting recriminations about why they lost, when someone said “Hey look at the screen!”

    Third, Michael Moore famously picked it before the election in a piece 5 reasons why Trump will win. The first is the rust-belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania – their 64 college votes would have been enough without Florida and a few others.

    Yes, and Hillary was a problem in herself.

    I can’t say I disagree with any of his comments.

    Now he thinks Trump will be impeached or resign, but his reasons aren’t as cogent.

  20. Too good to not share.
    “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
    H.L. Mencken, 1920

  21. Oh, Mencken is deliciously vicious. Takes no prisoners, pulls no punches. A glory of America, along with Mark Twain.

  22. Brian,

    Thanks for the Michael Moore article. Crisp, knowledgeable and funny. Much politer than that David Wong piece, mentioned up thread.

    BTW, Australian ABC television Election Day coverage was woeful. They seem to suffer from what one wag called (many years ago) delusions of adequacy.

    “2/10, must do better”
    “Use reliable sources, not gossip”

  23. Ambigulous, the Michael Moore story went viral on social media just after the election.

    There’s been some commentary about the role of social media in this election, especially in what’s called “post-truth politics”, but the media have not been much better in sorting out the truth.

  24. Hi Brian.

    I think Mr Moore’s article was published by him in July, just after the Republican National Convention. If so, it was a prediction.

    If it only ever appeared on his own website, that’s still published.

    Reading its very first sections, it sounds as if it was written just after the Convention.

    I’m not surprised it “went viral” after Donald Trump’s victory. Naturally, people would be sifting through material published during 2016, to see who had predicted the victory and who hadn’t.

    It’s a separate matter to the ‘failure of the opinion polls’.

    This was seat-of-the-pants, gut instinct from a bloke who has been particularly exercised over the loss of factory jobs in the US. I think he did a good job of surmising how Trump would prove popular, energise supporters to vote; and why Secretary Clinton was a weak candidate.

    I wasn’t claiming Mr Moore influenced the election, just that he made an accurate prediction. A stronger prediction than Mr Gerard Henderson on “Insiders” who said, “IF Trump can win these States…., he can win the election.” [“Not going to happen,” opined Mr B. Cassidy, the host.]

    Mr Moore said he WOULD win the so-called rust-belt States.
    His analysis deserves attention, not because it has now “gone viral” but because it was accurate. Not by sheer luck, I think.

    {BTW, I’m no big fan of Mr Moore, usually.}

  25. The Republicans, for the last 4 elections have gotten about 60 million votes each time.
    The Democrate vote has varied quite a bit.
    04,- 59 mil
    08,- 69.5 mill
    12,- 65.9 mill
    16,- 61 mill.

    I realise popular vote doesn’t win it but it’s interesting.

  26. Purely in the interests of accuracy, I will point out that the 2016 vote is still being counted.
    As of today Clinton has 62,318,079 votes, a lead of 1,152,016 over Trump’s 61,166,063. When the Electoral College meets in about a month to decide who will be POTUS for the next four years her lead in the popular vote will be in the region of 2 million.
    Trump should still be President (the rules are the rules), but there is no way he can legitimately claim a mandate.

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