This past fall, the presidential election rocked the nation with the news of Donald Trump becoming the presidential elect. Now, his inauguration is just weeks away. Preceding election day, Hillary Clinton was a few percents a head of Trump in many of the polls, but surprisingly he won by nearly 70 electoral votes. The question is how did someone who is covered in controversy – perhaps more than any other presidential candidates – become one of the most powerful men on Earth? Some speculate this was due to low voter turnout of Democrats, the belief that the system was corrupt and the hope that Trump can change the system.

Right before election day media outlets consistently claimed that Hillary Clinton was expected to win. That might have resulted in Hillary supporting Democrats to not show because they thought her win was in the bag. According to The Atlantic in the past few elections, there has been an extremely high amount of Democrats in comparison to Republican voters, but in this election, the number of Democratic voters dropped to a very similar number as Republicans. Therefore, instead of a massive increase of Trump supporters, some argue that a massive decrease in voting Democrats cause the Trump victory.

Furthermore, some usually more liberal voters may have chosen not to vote for Hillary amidst their disappointment that Bernie Sanders, another popular Democrat, did not make it past the primary. His supporters often professed a distaste for the established party players, like Hillary. As a result, third party candidates like Jill Stein may have attracted voters that others assumed would vote for Hillary. Hillary Clinton, like Donald Trump, was not free of controversy, so this could have skewed Democratic voters into not showing up to the polls or voting in unexpected ways.

Another reason Trump won could be that he attracted voters who believe the system – the government –  is corrupt. Donald Trump appealed to people considered outsiders, and he promised to set the system right. In contrast, Clinton has been in the government for 30 years, scaring away the system-weary voters. That could be one of the reasons Trump pulled ahead, but Donald Trump has quite often said that people were already thinking about change before this election came around. Also, it has become evident that Trump appealed to blue collar voters. These people feel that they’ve been forgotten and abandoned, and Trump spoke directly to them many a times. This was a point Hillary Clinton rarely touched upon even though she held several positions over thirty years in the government, so she had been serving these very people.

It seems as if Trump won due to a few small things going wrong for the Clinton team, like overconfidence and anger among Bernie Sanders voters, and the success of the Trump campaign in reaching out to a demographic that was previously not noticed and offering a significant new face to politics. However, no matter which candidate you supported in the race, everybody has to accept and respect that Donald Trump will be our new President, and thus, the leader our the United States of America.

References

Brownstein, Ronald. “How Trump Won.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 9 Nov. 2016. Web. 15 Dec. 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/how-trump-won/507053/>.