Ronald Brownstein in The Atlantic:
The places that feel most left behind in a changing America propelled Donald Trump to a stunning victory over Hillary Clinton Tuesday night. In his unexpected win, Trump mobilized enormous margins among rural and exurban voters, and crushing advantages among blue-collar whites. In several cases, he prevented Clinton from making as many gains among college-educated white voters as seemed possible. That allowed Trump to overcome Clinton’s strong performance among minority voters and college-educated white women. Trump’s winning map underscored the risk Clinton faced pouring disproportionately so many more resources into her insurance states than in some of the core states in her campaign’s preferred path to 270 electoral college votes. As I noted last week, Clinton invested about $180 million in television ads in Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio through the end of October—and yet, in the end, lost all three. By comparison, over that period she spent only around $16 million in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Colorado; the third seemed safely in her hands as the evening progressed, but Wisconsin slipped away and Michigan wobbled, and with them went her advantage in the Electoral College. Trump held the traditionally Republican states—he won all of the states Mitt Romney won in 2012—and did exactly what his campaign had predicted for months: battered through the Democratic defenses in the Midwest.
… In an election that became virtually a cultural civil war between two Americas, Trump’s side proved much more enthusiastic and united than Clinton’s. And it has now propelled America into an unexpected, and perhaps, unprecedented, experiment.
More here.
