Despite conventional wisdom and many polls suggesting that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 U.S. presidential election, voters elected Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump on Nov. 8, giving him a projected 306 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232 electoral votes.
The vote came down to races in key Rust Belt states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
The Rust Belt is composed of midwestern and northeastern states where industry is declining and factories continue to close.
“Trump went to campaign in these states that Hillary never went to,” says freshman Anish Malla, “which ended up helping him win.” Pre-election polling underestimated Trump’s support in the Rust Belt states. FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast gave Clinton an 83.5 percent chance of winning Wisconsin, a 78.9 percent chance in Michigan and a 77 percent chance of winning in Pennsylvania — all states that Trump ended up winning on election night.
Although it’s largely unclear at this point why the polling miss was so large, factors such as nonresponse bias with the “shy” Trump vote, where Trump voters were purportedly less likely to respond to live interviewer because of the negativity associated with Trump’s campaign, or lower-than-expected turnout of Democrat voters in Midwestern states could be responsible. However, there is also a chance that the miss was not due to problems with the polls, but rather a last-minute shift towards Trump on and just before Election Day.
And while Trump won the election in the Electoral College, the election was narrow enough to give Clinton a projected 1 to 2 percent lead in the popular vote. This is because, in the Electoral College, the leading candidate in each state is given all of the state’s electoral votes, no matter what margin the state is won by. In general on election night, the states which went blue voted for Clinton with higher margins, while states that went red had narrower races between the two overall.
The key demographic that decided the election were white voters — Clinton, as the first major party female presidential nominee, paired with Trump’s less-than-presidential comments regarding women throughout the campaign, and his life, expected to win with women — and she did, by a 12 point margin (a historically high gender gap), but despite this, she lost among white women by a 10 point margin, according to FiveThirtyEight.
That split is even larger among non-college educated white women — she lost in that demographic by a 28 point margin. As a whole, non-college educated voters pushed Trump over the edge — he won there by a 38 point margin.
Especially in those key Rust Belt states, there are many non-college educated white voters who had manufacturing jobs that have recently been shipped overseas. Trump’s anti-free trade message, promising to bring those jobs back to America, resonated with these voters.
As the aftermath of the unexpected result played out on Wednesday, Nov. 9, many anti-Trump protests erupted around the country — including here in California, where Clinton won by a nearly 29 percent margin. Locally, about 30 high school students staged a walkout at Sequoia High School in Redwood City around noon on Nov. 9, and about 1,000 students in San Francisco walked out to protest Trump. On Tuesday, Nov. 15, Aragon students walked out to Central Park, along with students from San Mateo and Hillsdale high schools.
Since the election, there have been reports of an increase in hate crimes throughout the country. Trump has condemned these actions, but some students are still afraid of actions inspired by the comments he made during his campaign.
“Growing up in the Bay Area, the only time I’ve ever been called a ‘spick’ was after Donald Trump said those horrible things about Mexicans,” says Mexican American senior Amelia Solis, “He’s given a voice to a lot of the racist factions of this country, and maybe I’m more protected here because I live in the Bay Area, but if I’m a ‘spick’ in the Bay Area, what am I in the rest of the country?”
However, other students do believe that the new elect will be good for America.
“Trump is a racist, and I don’t like his rhetoric about building a wall, but he’s going to lower taxes for everyone so they can keep more money, and we really need to focus on fighting and stopping ISIS, and we really need to stop terrorism,” says junior Nicholas Delmonico, “I also like him because he’s not shy about saying what he wants — you need to hear the honest truth, and sometimes the truth hurts.”
Malla agrees. “I think it will turn out to be pretty good. I think there’s going to be a good amount of change, towards the right direction. With the economy, I know the stocks fell down initially because of Trump’s win, but I think it’s going to come back up and get even better.”
In terms of passing legislation, Republicans also won in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, giving the party control in both Congress and the presidency.
“It puts some of the things Obama did at risk. Obama’s health reform may be gone, which Trump certainly pushed during his campaign,” says Government teacher Jon Felder, “Trump is in a better position to get what he wants done since Republicans control Congress — it gives Republicans the opportunity to create the laws that they want to create.”
Obama’s presidency was marked by a number of executive orders, which allowed him to create legislation without having to go through the impasse in Congress. These orders include rules regarding illegal immigrants, climate change/greenhouse gases, and gun control — all divisive, partisan issues that he and Trump disagree on. As president, Trump will be able to waive away these orders, and plans to do so, according to his first 100 days plan (NPR).
Along with Congress and the presidency, Trump’s Supreme Court pick to replace Judge Antonin Scalia will likely tip the Court’s current four-four split in favor of more conservative viewpoints.
“I feel like whatever happens, whatever legislation passes, could be changed by the president and Congress to come after Trump,” says Solis, “but the Supreme Court pick is more permanent, that could hurt Democrats for a while, so that’s what really worries me there.”
Besides Scalia’s open seat, some of the older judges on the Supreme Court, like 83-year-old cancer survivor Ruth Bader Ginsburg, could potentially retire, leaving more seats open for Trump and the Republican Congress to confirm a heavily conservative Supreme Court.
After a long campaign season that ended in the election of the presidential candidate with the highest unfavorability ratings in presidential history, Americans are considering what the country, and the world, will look like under Trump’s presidency.
“I don’t see a World War III, I don’t see cataclysm, I don’t see the end of the world. All I see is that there’s going to be a lot of controversy, arguments, people protesting and a lot of negativity, especially to Trump and to his family,” says freshman Shaun Kiefus, “As a country as a whole, I don’t see anything physically bad happening like a war, but I can see a lot of political and social divisiveness.”
Adds Felder, “I don’t think that, given the campaign he ran, given the way he treated various groups of the electorate, that people will gravitate to him. But I do think he’ll use the narrow mandate he has to push his agenda.”
Looking to the future, the next major national elections will be the 2018 midterms, with all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 out of 100 seats in the Senate being contested. There is potential for Democrats to win back control of Congress in 2018, which would provide a check for the Democrats against the Republican president.
Besides president, local representatives and measures are also important in understanding how San Mateo will be governed in the coming years. While the presidential election results were largely unexpected, local legislation and elections in California and San Mateo County seemed to line up with polling.
Notably, California voted for marijuana legalization, rejected a measure to repeal the death penalty, and elected Kamala Harris to the U.S. Senate.
Locally, San Mateo and Burlingame repudiated Measures Q and R, which sought to implement rent control and tenant eviction protections in those cities, and Jackie Speier was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Trump is set to be sworn in to the presidency on Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2017. So far, his tenure as president-elect has been less volatile than his campaign. After winning, he gave a speech on election night that many considered to be uncharacteristically diplomatic, and on Nov. 10, he met with Obama to discuss a peaceful transfer of power, without any conflict between the two, despite their major political differences and heavy criticisms of each other.
I thought Trump winning was a pretty great thing.