Reported by Forrest Maynock
Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States of America. Beat- ing many odds Trump became president by winning key states such as Florida and Pennsylvania. The question moving forward will be what the new president will do with party majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate.
Dan Stengel, a professor of Political Science at Peninsula College, felt confident that Hillary Clinton would win the election. In an election day speech at the Little Theater set up by the English department, Stengel explained the Electoral College and some possible outcomes
for the election. Stengel was not only confident that Clinton would win the election, but also confident that the senate would revert to a Democrat majority.
According to a lot of pre-election polls, Stengel was not wrong to think that way. FiveThirtyEight.com had Trump at only a 28.6% chance of winning in their Nov 8 exit polls.
When asked why Trump won key states, Stengel responded, “The Clinton campaign never succeeded in projecting a clear message of what a Clinton administration would offer in con- trast to a continuation of current policies. The emphasis of the campaign seemed to be mired in attacking Trump.”
From the start of the campaign Trump had a clear slogan and persona, and was given a lot of both positive and negative press coverage. Clinton’s campaign seemed relatively quiet in comparison. There were also many controversies from both sides that made this election that were particularly volatile.
Stengel continued saying, “Trump won over working-class white voters who have lost ground in the economic fallout from 25 years of neo-liberal trade policies. The Obama coalition of African-American, Latino, Millennial and White Progressive voters did not show up. Wisconsin is a case in point…She [Clinton] lost the state by less than 30,000 votes. Had she been able to turn out these non-voters, this reliable Blue State should have put its ten electoral votes in her column.”