Presidential Voting Analysis

I thought about writing this post right after the election.  But there was enough speculation out there which I enjoyed reading, and figured my ideas were probably unimportant.  But I haven’t really seen anything that changed my mind.

I’m still surprised about the extent of the red (Republican) counties and the large margins that were achieved in most of those states.  By looking at the map, you could definitely see where (illegal) immigration had a significant effect (blue regions along the border not near large cities).  Obviously, most recent immigrants seemed to have been offended or simply disagreed with Trump’s position on border control.  While I did not expect Trump to do anything drastic--such as begin a mass deportation effort—I would not be surprised that recent immigrants might fear such an action.

But back to my main point.  First, I must say that anyone that was not a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat would have been likely to consider Trump’s policies in a favorable light.  That is, if they ever had a chance to learn about his actual policies.  Surprisingly (to me), a LOT of people must have heard about Trump policies that they liked, and voted for him.  The alternative, which is possible, is that many Republican and independent voters really hated the Obama and Hillary Clinton policies and approach.

What I expected was that the mainstream media’s war against Trump would have turned off a lot of potential Trump votes.  That is, it would have been equivalent to a strong voter suppression effort against Republicans.  If the articles I’ve read were correct, Trump got a few less votes than Romney.  If so, the media’s voter suppression effort was at least partially successful against Trump.

Now to the Hillary Clinton and traditional Democrat voters.  What they heard was how horrible Trump was and how horrible were those who would vote for him.  Many Trump voters in Democrat majority areas were so intimidated they didn’t expose their views to the public.  Many on social media likewise withheld their support for Trump to avoid the hate backlash.  Then, and this is what I think was critical, the polls showed Hillary Clinton with a nearly insurmountable lead.  The polls and pollsters that thought Trump had a chance were denigrated and ridiculed.

If you were a Democratic voter or Hillary supporter, why would you bother to get out and vote?  She had an insurmountable lead, and your vote would just be 1 out of 150,000,000.  You only listen, read and/or watch the mainstream media, which agree with your views, and they say Hillary is a lock.

And so Hillary Clinton did not get as many votes as Obama did.  In addition to suppressing the Republican vote, the mainstream media and clueless pollsters inadvertently suppressed the Democratic vote!

Of course, that is just my big-picture guess. If you look at the overwhelming majorities Hillary Clinton received in the big cities and blue states, it doesn’t really look like, relatively speaking, there was much of a voter suppression effect on Democratic voters. Maybe there really is a strong voter divide between red and blue country. People just tuned out the media and the pollsters, and voted their belief systems?