How Donald Trump Won

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TNS

Donald Trump voter Anthony Miskulin stands underneath the Huntington Beach Pier while he explains why he voted for Donald Trump on Friday, Nov. 11, 2016. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

In one of the biggest upsets in American political history, Republican nominee Donald Trump has defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Here are three factors that may have led to his victory:

1: The Shy Republicans

With a candidate as controversial as Donald Trump, many mistakenly believed that he would scare off voters who typically vote Republican. Many Republican politicians, including Mitt Romney and George W. Bush, stated that they could not vote for him.

However, many people still theorized that countless unknown Trump fans were still out there; they just couldn’t admit that they were voting for him. This theory was proven correct, given the turnout at the polls. Trump was able to pull off states that are consistently Democrat, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

2: The Floridian Hispanic Voters

Considering some concerning comments Trump made about Hispanics throughout his campaign, along with data and trends from past elections, almost all polls showed that the vast majority of Hispanic voters in the election would vote for Clinton.

This prediction was crucial in Florida particularly because it suggested that the increasingly democratic Hispanic vote might be enough to give Hillary the victory in Florida, an important swing state and the key to 29 electoral votes.

Though Clinton did receive the majority of Hispanics’ votes in Florida, exit polls show that Trump earned 31% of their votes, a substantially higher number than predicted. Much of this 31% consisted of the votes of Floridian Cuban-Americans, who Trump won by an estimated 13 points.

3: The Trump Campaign’s Rural Ground Game

Throughout the presidential race, it appeared that the Clinton campaign had a far superior ground game than the Trump campaign. In the days leading up to the election, Clinton’s supporters went from house to house attempting to draw in more voters.

However, it turns out that the Trump ground game was much better than the general media let on. The reason why his ground game went unnoticed or ignored by so many was because it was primarily concentrated in very rural areas.

Trump’s supporters spent much time in western Pennsylvania and northern Michigan to earn the votes of rural voters. This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons Trump was victorious because it helped him win these two crucial states. This election was the first time Pennsylvania and Michigan had voted Republican since 1988 and Wisconsin since 1984.