Thursday 10 November 2016

US election 2016: Triumphant Trump beats complacent Clinton


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Hillary CLINTON
Democrat
60,029,365
(47.7%)
232California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (3), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), Minnesota (10), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Virginia (13), Washington (12) + DC (3)
Donald TRUMP
Republican
59,769,452 (47.5%)
306Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Florida (29), Georgia (16), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Iowa (6), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Maine (1), Michigan (16), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Ohio (18), Oklahoma (7), Pennsylvania (20), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), Wisconsin (10), Wyoming (3)

MAVERICK Donald Trump pulled off possibly the most sensational win in American electoral history yesterday after defeating Hillary Clinton to become the 45th President of the United States.

With Arizona still counting, and Michigan and New Hampshire classed as virtual dead heats, the final result in the Electoral College is yet to be confirmed. 

However, if the current positions in each of those states holds, Mr Trump will eventually prevail 306 to 232, as above.

By contrast, in the popular vote, it is highly likely that Mrs Clinton will be confirmed as the winner, making it the second presidential election out of the last five in which the winner of the most votes has failed to gain the keys to the White House.

For the record, George W Bush beat Al Gore in 2000 despite losing the popular vote - something which my preview blog mentioned. 

In fact, the Democrats have won the popular vote in six of the last seven elections, missing out only in 2004 when incumbent Mr Bush defeated John Kerry. 

But all of these facts will be of little comfort to Mrs Clinton. The hopes of the 69-year-old becoming the first ever female US President now appear to be dashed forever

The election night itself made its customarily quiet start as states such as Maryland and Massachusetts for the Democrats, and Tennessee and Texas for the Republicans, were allocated to their respective columns.

Just after 3am GMT, with no swing states yet called, Mr Trump held a 140-109 lead in the Electoral College. But then came the first blow for Mrs Clinton. 

Ohio - a state which has backed the winner of every presidential election since 1960 - lived up to its bellwether reputation by being called for Mr Trump.

And, startlingly, the 70-year-old billionaire took the Buckeye state by nearly a nine-percent margin, a 12-point turnaround from four years ago when Barack Obama won it for the Democrats.

Better news followed for Mrs Clinton as she secured the electoral votes from Colorado and then, narrowly, from Virginia. However, early reports from Michigan and Wisconsin hinted at yet more trouble for her in the Mid West.

At 4am GMT, the Pacific coast states declared and the massive haul of 55 electoral votes from California put Mrs Clinton into the lead in the Electoral College.

But, as soon as the cheers over the California result were dying down at Clinton HQ in New York, North Carolina was declared for Mr Trump. 

Thereafter, it became one-way traffic in terms of the most important results. Mr Trump took the perennial swing state of Florida just after 4.30am GMT, and followed it up by securing neighbouring Georgia just before 5am GMT. 

However, the last knockout blows for Mrs Clinton were still yet to come.

Shortly after 7am GMT, Mr Trump would became the first ever Republican candidate to win an electoral vote in the north eastern state of Maine, which splits its vote by district. More crucially still, he then became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since 1988.

Within minutes of that, it became clear Mr Trump had, in fact, repeated this feat in Wisconsin - and those 10 electoral votes were enough to put the Republican over the magical mark of 270 officially. 


Notably, Mrs Clinton had not visited the Badger state even once during the general election campaign. 

True, Wisconsin had been so reliably Democrat for the last 28 years that it might have seemed a waste of energy and resources - and, yes, this point relies a lot on hindsight. 

Nevertheless, such complacency, looking back, now seems astonishing. After all, the Mid West has threatened to drift away from the Democrats for years. 

In the 2012 election, Mr Obama arguably only secured the support of Michigan after he promised a bailout to the world famous but now much suffering automobile industry in Detroit.

Unfortunately, for such areas, the decline in manufacturing has gone on for so long now that there is a sense of permanency about it. 

Small-town America - including many places in the rust belt - can be a hopeless, desolate place for their mainly white working class communities.

And it should therefore come as no surprise that this is where the roars against the establishment and the political elite have been at their loudest.


Some commentators have called it a whitelash but such analysis is far too simplistic and the complaints of these people - who just happen to be white, working class - are as much about economics as race.

Indeed, analysis of the white vote will not on its own explain the election result as a whole. 

For a start, the Clinton campaign also struggled to enthuse enough black or Hispanic voters with turnout for the Democrats well down on the last two elections.

Certainly, though, it was in the Mid West where this election was lost by Mrs Clinton - in Michigan and Wisconsin especially, where she had also earlier lost both Democratic primaries to another political outsider Bernie Sanders

Of course, it is impossible to know at this stage if Mr Sanders would instead have beaten Mr Trump. Surely, though, a Sanders candidacy would have given those angry anti-establishment voters in the Mid West something more to think about.

For a start, he may have paid those people some attention and listened to their concerns so that they did not simply lash out and desperately cross their ballot against Mr Trump's name in the vague hope that something somehow might change.

After all, even many Republican voters have admitted Mr Trump was, at best, a rather dysfunctional candidate for them.

The New Yorker, nonetheless, was still good enough to win - and, with Republicans having also retained control of both the House and the Senate, it would be fair to say the world became an even more uncertain place this week.

It could be a long four years with Mr Trump as President - and, following an election which changed the shape of the political map in America, it might well be eight.

Tuesday 8 November 2016

US election 2016: Clinton on a knife-edge

THE MOST bitter and divisive US Presidential election in decades mercifully draws to a close overnight as America decides between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Democrat candidate Mrs Clinton still holds the lead in almost all of the national polls - but, as election day has got closer, so undoubtedly have those polls.

Moreover, the popular vote is not even the decisive factor. It is possible, as George W Bush proved against Al Gore in 2000, to lose in terms of the total number of votes and yet still win the election.

The reason behind this is the electoral college system in which a candidate requires 270 electoral college votes to win.

Based largely on the population of a state, demographics across America have resulted in the majority of states becoming either dependably blue for the Democrats or reliably red for the Republicans.

As such, it can be safely predicted that California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Virginia (13), Washington (12), and the District of Columbia (3) will all fall into Mrs Clinton's column for a total of 204 electoral college votes.

Likewise, Mr Trump can expect to win Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), and Wyoming (3) for an overall tally of 164.
However, the map of swing states - where the turnout of a candidate's vote really counts - is far wider in 2016 than it was in 2012.

Also, four years ago, incumbent Barack Obama could count on holding the upper hand in nearly every single so-called 'purple' state

But, for Mrs Clinton this time around, that is simply not the case. 

Indeed, on the eve of the election proper, Florida (29), Nevada (6), and North Carolina (15) are complete toss-ups. 

Worse still, she trails in Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Iowa (6), and Ohio (18), all of which are thought to be up for grabs.

Fortunately for Mrs Clinton, she continues to have far more pathways to victory than Mr Trump.

Converting narrow leads in Colorado (9), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), Pennsylvania (20), and Wisconsin (10) would be enough for Mrs Clinton to become the first ever female President of the United States without her needing any of those other swing states.


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And if Mrs Clinton managed to pull off a win in Arizona, Florida or North Carolina, Mr Trump would find it just about impossible to succeed.

On final analysis then, Mrs Clinton is still a clear favourite in this election. 

Nevertheless, victory - if it does indeed arrive - will have been nowhere near as comfortably achieved as expected.

This has been a bruising campaign for the 69-year-old former New York senator right from the primary season when she faced an unexpectedly tough challenge from Bernie Sanders.

Having eventually won that race, Mrs Clinton has since been dogged by accusations that she may have breached federal rules during her time as Secretary of State by using a private email account for official business.

For the record, Mrs Clinton was cleared in July after a systematic analysis by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

But astonishingly, 11 days before the election, the FBI announced that newly discovered emails had come to light and it was re-opening its investigation.

On Sunday, FBI director James Comey cleared Mrs Clinton again. Nevertheless, the resurfacing of the story chimed well among some wavering voters with Mr Trump's repeated assertion that his opponent is corrupt.

And, consequently, it has dashed any possibility of a Clinton landslide, something had started to look increasingly during the month of October.

Yes, just a month ago, all the heat was on Mr Trump as a recording from 2005 was released in which he used explicit language, and claimed he could kiss and grope women because he is "a star".

Mr Trump, who had been accused of sexism on several occasions, later apologised for the remarks, claiming they did not reflect who he was.

But the damage was done and many Republicans withdrew their support including 2008 nominee, Arizona senator John McCain, and former Secretary of State in the Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice.

Somehow, it got worse for Mr Trump. In the days following the release of the tape, a steady stream of women came forward to suggest the recording did, in fact, reflect who he was.

Fighting fire with fire, Mr Trump held an impromptu press conference with women who have accused Mrs Clinton's husband, 42nd President Bill Clinton, of sexual assault.

It was the day, the BBC declared, that this election had gone down the drain - but, arguably, Mr Trump has never risen above the cesspit.

At the very launch of his bid for the presidency, he demonised Mexican immigrants as rapists and has constantly threatened to build a wall on the border between Mexico and the United States.

Meanwhile, his response to the San Bernardino terrorist attack in California was to "ban all Muslims" from entering the country. 

It is perhaps then no wonder that Mrs Clinton - despite her own imperfect campaign - still finds herself ahead.

Even then, though, an overnight victory - unless it is totally overwhelming - may not be the end of it. 

Mr Trump already on record saying he will not necessarily accept a result which does not go in his favour. Additionally, he has repeatedly claimed the election is rigged against him

Of course, the 70-year-old has already made so much investment, both financially and emotionally, to his tawdry campaign - and he has already suffered so much damage to his reputation. 

As such, being additionally labelled as a bad loser would, at this stage, barely make him flinch.

Ultimately then, this election may not, in fact, finish overnight after all. The best tip right now would be to brace yourself.
 
Coverage on BBC One begins at 11.15pm with the equivalent results programme on ITV starting slightly earlier at 10.40pm. Both broadcasts run through until breakfast news begins at 6am.

CLOSING TIMES
All times are GMT (number of electoral votes)

00:00 Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia (60)
00:30 North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia (38)
01:00 Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, DC 01:30 Arkansas (178)
02:00 Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming (156)
03:00 Iowa, Montana, Nevada, Utah (21)
04:00 California, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, Washington (82)
06:00 Alaska (3)