Area precincts helped Clinton secure Virginia

Infographic by Ashley Moody and Sarah King
Infographic by Ashley Moody and Sarah King
Infographic by Ashley Moody
Infographic by Ashley Moody

In an unexpected victory that “reshaped” the electoral map, Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency by exceeding the necessary 270 electoral college votes early Wednesday morning.

Trump locked-in 290 electoral college votes across 32 states to beat Clinton’s 16 states and 228 electoral votes, according to the New York Times’ election results, last updated Nov. 13.

Clinton called Trump to concede the election early Wednesday morning and delivered her concession speech later that day. At press time, votes were still being counted in multiple precincts, but Clinton already has a margin of more than 660,000 popular votes than Trump, according to a Nov. 12 NPR report.

The majority of Trump’s support, and subsequent electoral college victory, is due to the voters from industrial precincts in midwestern states. In these areas, the majority of the population is white Americans without a college education.

National Election Pool data indicates whites without a college education favored Trump by 39 points this election. In contrast, during the 1992 and 1996 elections, Bill Clinton and the Democrats had a one point lead over the GOP on white voters without a college degree.

This may help explain the surprising twist to the demographic of Trump’s voter turnout and consequential victory in states previously considered blue.

Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all “flipped” in favor of Trump, despite President Barack Obama winning them in 2008 and 2012. In each of the latter states, the GOP gained the support of non-college-educated white voters by a double-digit point margin since 2012.

In other key states, such as Virginia, polls closed at 7 p.m., but the vote was too close to call a winner until nearly 11 p.m. Clinton ultimately gained Virginia’s 13 electoral votes, but only by a 4.9 percent margin over Trump.

The win in Virginia was dictated by small spots of blue across the predominantly-red state map. The blue precincts that swayed the vote in Clinton’s favor were primarily in Northern Virginia, the Richmond metro area and portions of the Hampton Roads region.

Infographic by Ashley Moody and Sarah King
Infographic by Ashley Moody and Sarah King

In Richmond, 102,766 residents showed up to the polls to cast their vote for president. Clinton had a decisive win in the River City — the hometown of her running mate, Tim Kaine — gaining 78.43 percent of the city-wide vote.

In contrast, Trump won 14.94 percent in Richmond; Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won 3.85 percent; Green Party candidate Jill Stein won 1.1 percent; Independent Evan McMullin had 1.07 percent and less than 1 percent — 632 voters — wrote-in a seperate candidate on their ballot.

In the areas of the city most-heavily populated by VCU students, Richmond’s Second and Fifth Districts, voters could be seen wrapped around the block, waiting in line to vote, at nearby polling locations on Nov. 8.

In the Second District, which largely encompasses the Monroe Park Campus, 13,094 people cast their ballot. Clinton won 77.9 percent of the vote to Trump’s 14.07 percent, Johnson’s 4.55 percent, Stein’s 1.6 percent, McMullin’s 1.13 percent and the 99 voters who wrote-in a candidate to again constitute less than a percent of the total.

In the Fifth District Fan neighborhood, 10,978 voted. Although the overall voter turn-out was smaller compared to the crux of VCU campus, Clinton beat Trump by a larger margin. Here, Clinton claimed 83.18 percent of the vote to Trump’s 9.64 percent, Johnson’s 3.96 percent, Stein’s 1.49 percent and McMullin and write-in candidates comprising less than 1 percent each.


EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Sarah King. Photo by Julie TrippSarah King
Sarah is a senior studying political science and philosophy of law. She is also a copyeditor for INK Magazine and a reporter for the Capital News Service wire. Last spring, the Virginia Press Association awarded Sarah 3rd place for Public Safety Writing Portfolio and the Hearst Awards awarded her 4th place for Breaking News Writing. Sarah was invited to the White House in April for the Administration’s innaugural College Reporter Day. She previously worked as an editorial intern for Congressional Quarterly Researcher and SAGE Business Researcher in Washington, D.C., as well as at RVAmag and GayRVA.com.
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