Sunday, November 17, 2019
How Trump Won the Election
From the start of the election, many people believed that Trump's campaign was a joke and yet he still somehow ended up as our President. The reason that Trump ended up as President even though he did not get the popular vote is that he won over the electoral college. In fact, Trump had the widest gap between popular vote and candidacy than any other president but Trump was able to win over many of the swing states which made his election. Trump won Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania while Clinton only won New Hampshire and Minnesota. All of these states were won by a margin of less than two percent but they also made a huge impact on the election. The four states won by Trump were all won by Obama in 2012. Pennsylvania and Michigan had not voted for a Republican president since voting for George H.W. Bush in 1988. Wisconsin had not gone Republican since 1984. Trump was able to win over these swing states by getting voters who typically stayed away from the polls but were Republicans to get out and votes. Therefore, States that typically voted democrat went Republican because they got more voters. Trump was really smart in his campaign and without states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania he would have lost the election. 107,000 people, voters in the three swing states, essentially decided the election.
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I agree with how he won but I disagree partly with why. I think Trump was able to get those swing states because, like Obama, he had a type of charisma that Hillary didn't. By running his campaign like a show, Trump was able to entertain people who may not have been interested in politics, people who might not always vote. These 'secret republicans' (who voted for Obama) are probably not true republicans (these same people have been polled in 2019 and lean towards Yang who is literally offering people free money and Bernie, the most liberal democrat running). Instead Trump was able to appeal to them through his abrasive personality and entertaining delivery.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-or-a-democrat-eastern-iowa-ponders-its-presidential-choice/2019/06/11/caa982fa-8b0b-11e9-b08e-cfd89bd36d4e_story.html
I also think it's important to note that the voters didn't really like either of their candidates. One reason Trump did end up getting more electoral votes could be because Clinton didn't get all the Democratic voters to vote while Trump got the Republican voters. So maybe he didn't get new voters to come out, but Clinton could have lost some of the votes. However, the voter turnout was approximately the same to 2012 at 128.5 million when 2012 was 129.2 million. So where did these democratic votes go? The source that I found said that from 2012, the amount of Other or 3rd party voters increased by 4.5 million. These votes could be coming from the democratic voters in the swing states Trump won, the ones that didn't vote democratic before. Not sure if this is true, but it's another option.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.npr.org/2016/11/12/501848636/7-reasons-donald-trump-won-the-presidential-election