Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. What happened?
When you look at the Electoral College maps in 2012 versus yesterday, here are the states that jumped sides (with their Electoral College votes): Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (6), and possibly New Hampshire (4, but it is still very tight, with Trump leading by roughly 300 votes at 4:30 am EST). They all went to Trump.
For Iowa, I chalk that up to the Mike Pence factor. Vice presidential choices can be like a pawn move in chess. A good pawn move can be important in the overall game. Trump won Iowa (51-42%) almost like Indiana (57-37%), which is a similar nearby midwestern state. Trump's choice of Pence as his VP sent a strong midwestern signal, whereas Hillary Clinton's choice of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine only barely helped her in Virginia (49-45%), which was a blue state in 2012 too.
For Michigan (47.7%-47.2%) and Wisconsin (47-46%), those belong to Trump's anti-free trade rhetoric, which had strong appeal to rust belt states. They are looking for someone to blame for their failing manufacturing, and "21st century technology" isn't a big sell to blue collar types.
The rust belt factor also applies to Ohio (52-43%) and Pennsylvania (48-47%), along with Hillary's strong anti-coal message (which also hurt her in Virginia, but she managed to retain the win there).
The big steal for Trump was Florida (49-47%). There were two big factors there:
1. The race factor. In 2012, President Obama beat Mitt Romney 50-49%, but you have to remember Obama carried unprecedented levels of the black vote, which turned out in much larger numbers than usual. This year, Trump dipped into those percentages significantly.Regarding that last factor, that impacted other states too, including some of the others mentioned above (percentage vote for third parties in parentheses): Michigan (5.1%), Wisconsin (5.2%), and Pennsylvania (3.5%). Considering the victory margin was significantly less than the third party vote in those states, this exceptional showing by third parties shows a strong leak in the major party's votes. If the next election is as ugly as this one, don't be surprised if this trend continues.
2. The negativity (and awful candidates) of this race. In 2012, third party votes accounted for less than 1% of the overall votes, with Libertarian Gary Johnson pulling a scant 0.53% of the vote. This year, third parties pulled 3.2%. Before Libertarians pat themselves on the back, they need to consider there was much more "pox on both your houses" voting this year.
On a side note, the Clinton concession speech last night was given by John Podesta, the source of all the Wikileaks emails. Irony is a cruel mistress.
Other fallout from the Trump election:
Mirror:
The current French ambassador to the United States has tweeted that the "world is collapsing before our eyes" as Donald Trump looks set to become US President.Electing Trump is almost worth the image of the French ambassador swooning. Priceless.
Gerard Araud, who is the serving ambassador, tweeting his remarks as forecasters predict the Republican billionaire will defeat Hillary Clinton.
The 63-year-old said: "After Brexit and this election, everything is now possible. A world is collapsing before our eyes. Dizziness."
Seriously, the world's elites, of which Hillary Clinton was their best American candidate, have had their chance. After the economic collapse of 2008, they opted to bail out the world banking system, which did little for anyone's economy. Since 9/11, they have had us in a neverending war against Islam, which has only created more terrorism and Islamic migrants from the Middle East and Asia, which the elites have also encouraged.
Trump wasn't the best choice, and he wasn't even a good choice, but he was preferable to the status quo.
Deal with it, France.
Speaking of drama queens...
BT:
Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States has been compared to Brexit many times – but that comparison could get a little bit more real if disgruntled Californians have anything to do with it.For now, this is just a social media thing, and nothing organized. However, if the folks in California really want to secede, I promise as a good Georgia boy to support their efforts.
Following the news that Trump had defeated Hillary Clinton at the polls, voters in the left-leaning state of California were calling for Calexit...
But Californians aren't the only drama queens about this:
The Hill:
Dozens of celebrities vowed to leave the country if Donald Trump won the White House, saying they’d flee to everywhere from Canada to Jupiter.To be honest, I would not want to see Samuel L. Jackson or Jon Stewart leave. But they are the only ones on the list.
The threat is a common one after any election outcome: Canada’s immigration website crashed from heavy traffic as it looked increasingly likely that Trump would win.
But after the real estate mogul clinched the presidency in a stunning victory early Wednesday morning, some of those stars will face questions about making good on their promise.
The rest is a "who's who" of idiotic Leftist drama queens: Lena Dunham, Cher, Miley Cyrus, Barbara Streisand, Amy Schumer, Whoopi Goldberg, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (although Ginsburg later retracted her comments).
But the one who I would literally want to force him to leave is Al Sharpton. If he left, that alone could make this country a better place. Heck, I would even vote for Trump in the next election, just to keep Sharpton out. (Ok, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but not by much.)
I will leave the final word on this presidential election to my old buddy Rodak:
Rodak Riffs:
And finally: Thanks a lot, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
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