Deconstructing Trump victory: What numbers tell
As Donald Trump won a “stunning” victory, poll numbers of the “political earthquake” have already begun to be deconstructed. How was Trump able to upset the apple cart, when overwhelmingly all poll data before the elections showed Clinton as the likely president-elect? As ‘not my president’ becomes the rallying cry for American citizens who are shocked to see a political amateur become their leader, it is clear something somewhere was dismissed, not taken sufficiently into account or not factored at all into the equations. What is now being closely questioned is whether Trump won or Clinton lost — and it seems very likely that the latter is what won Trump the US presidency.
Donald Trump’s electoral map looks unlike what Republican nominee maps have usually looked like. Clearly, the rage of the rustbelt went under-appreciated, even in the Trump camp, where internal polling did not see a victory for the business tycoon. The same can be said of what is clearly a deeper anguish and anxiety over race. And thus, while it was expected that white, working class individuals with no more than a high-school education would form the base support for Trump, exit polls indicate that all white people, regardless of class, gender and education levels, took what a panelist on MSNBC called “the last stand” against the browning of America.
In the end, disinterest and apathy, sexism and a genuine dislike for Hillary Clinton, due to her close identification of the Washington status quo, are all factors that ended up costing Clinton the elections and tilting the balance in Trump’s favour.
