by Darren Janz Well, tomorrow marks the one-month anniversary of Election Night 2016, and we've figured that now is as good a time as any for one final runthrough of the election results now that (almost) every ballot has been counted. For President: Donald Trump (R-NY) - 306 Electoral Votes; 46.0% Popular Vote Hillary Clinton (D-NY) - 232 Electoral Votes; 48.1% Popular Vote Gary Johnson (L-NM) - 0 Electoral Votes; 3.3% Popular Vote Jill Stein (G-MA) - 0 Electoral Votes; 1.1% Popular Vote Evan McMullin (I-UT) - 0 Electoral Votes; 0.5% Popular Vote Other - 0 Electoral Votes; 1.0% Popular Vote Not since 1948 ("Dewey Defeats Truman") has something close to this happened. An irrefutable frontrunner - a candidate so overwhelmingly considered by the public, the media, and the polling industry to be inevitable for election that any suggestion otherwise was to be ridiculed - has been defeated by an undeniable underdog, someone whose victory was considered so unlikely that even a suggestion of its possibility was untolerated. Despite winning the popular vote by more than 2% and almost 3 million votes, Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump by a significant margin in the Electoral College, losing states that hadn't been lost by the Democrats since the eighties and that almost no mainstream political commentators considered to be overtly competitive by election day. Trump's victory was fueled almost in full by the plight of the white working-class voter - a map showing the relative shift of each county's vote compared to 2012 shows that rural, white areas swung en masse towards Trump, while cities and minority-dominated areas moved largely towards Clinton. From Elliott County, Kentucky, which had voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every single election since it was created in 1869, to the Driftless Area in the Upper Midwest, which up until now has been the most notable home of the white rural Democrat, Trump's domination of the apparently revitalized Silent Majority was nothing but a clean sweep. In Iowa, a state that had voted for a Republican only once since 1984, Trump's effect on the rural working class was especially evident - every county in the state with less than 50,000 voters supported Trump, while every county in the state with over 50,000 voters went for Clinton. While the election itself was the best performance for a Republican since 1988, electoral trends could paint quite a different picture when it comes to implications for the future. Trump's gains in the rural Northwest, Midwest, and Northeast were countered by Clinton's successes in the Sun Belt, where her overperformances of Obama's margins in sizeable states like Arizona, California, Georgia, and Texas could suggest a bright spot for the Democrats in the future. Many of the areas that trended towards Clinton are expected to gain population much faster than those that moved towards Trump, and demographic shifts in the Southwest, Southeast, and Mid-Atlantic - as well as in growing cities and their suburbs - could suggest that Democrats will soon begin to score key victories in areas that were once banes to their electoral success. There is perhaps no better an example of this than in Orange County, California, a former Republican bastion that up until this year hadn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1936. The county, which boasts a population of over 3 million and this year voted for Clinton by almost ten points, is a perfect representation of Democrats' potential gains in quickly-growing areas where demographic changes could determine everything. Of course, as with everything in politics, circumstances change, and all we can be sure of for now is that the 2016 presidential election was a massive victory for Trump and all he represents, whether for the better or the worse. For Governor: Republicans - 33 States (+2) Democrats - 16 States (-2) Independents - 1 State (no net change) As with the presidential election, gubernatorial contests this cycle were mostly good news for Republicans. Despite the razor-thin victory of Democratic challenger Roy Cooper over Republican Governor Pat McCrory in the state of North Carolina (which represented the first time in Tar Heel history an incumbent governor had been defeated for reelection), Republicans nearly swept the board in competitive races, easily holding onto the Governor's Mansion in Indiana and making three key gains in Missouri, New Hampshire, and Vermont (which elected Republican Phil Scott despite giving Trump less than one-third of the state's vote). Besides North Carolina, there were two other bright spots for Democrats on Election Night, with Democratic Governor Steve Bullock of Montana comfortably securing reelection and businessman Jim Justice of West Virginia holding the state for Democrats on a gubernatorial scale despite Trump's massive victory. For Senate: Republicans - 52 Seats (-2) Democrats - 48 Seats (+2) In the end, Republicans avoided the possibility of a tied Senate by winning the upper chamber of Congress outright, allowing Democrats to pick up only two seats nationwide as the GOP won almost all competitive races. Despite losses in Illinois (where Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth defeated Republican Senator Mark Kirk) and New Hampshire (where Democratic challenger Maggie Hassan defeated Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte), Republicans held onto every other one of their seats that was considered to be at risk. Perhaps the most surprising example of this was in Wisconsin, where Senator Ron Johnson - considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the nation - won reelection in a surprise victory over former Senator Russ Feingold, who was considered by almost all political pundits to win in a thought to be guaranteed pickup for the Democrats. Despite Republican victories in key states like Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Democrats did hold two key seats in Colorado and Nevada, the latter of which was considered especially competitive and by some even a likely pickup for Republicans. For House: Republicans - 241 Seats (-6) Democrats - 194 Seats (+6) Overall, Democrats gained nine seats held by Republicans and lost three of their own, resulting in a net change of +6 - not nearly enough to retake the chamber from the GOP. Almost half of the pickups on both sides of the aisle occurred in Florida, where redistricting allowed Democrats to take three seats from Republicans and allowed Republicans to in turn steal two from the Democrats. Outside of the Sunshine State, Democrats scored victories in Illinois, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia, and especially Nevada, where Democratic candidates picked up two seats formerly held by Republicans and now control 3/4 of the state's congressional delegation. Meanwhile, the only Republican pickup outside of Florida was in Nebraska, where vulnerable incumbent Brad Ashford was defeated by Republican Don Bacon in a district generally favorable to the GOP. Overall, the Democrats' underperformance in House elections is likely due to a bad night for Democrats nationwide, with Trump possibly even saving some vulnerable Republican incumbents with his own unexpected coattails. All things considered, the 2016 elections were mostly favorable for the GOP, though did imply the existence of some underlying geopolitical trends that could be useful for the Democrats in the near future. Regardless of your personal political tendencies, there is one thing we can all agree on - the 2016 election was certainly one to be remembered.
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