Indications have emerged as to why United States Democrat candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost to her Republican rival, Donald Trump.
Trump has won 289 electoral votes, surpassing the required 270, while Clinton clinched 218.
Trump won key swing states of Florida, North Carolina and Ohio as he succeeds in his long time ambition of “winning the race” to the White House.
Known for his “we will take back our country” comment, the billionaire businessman surpassed expectations and rubbished projection in Florida, where Hillary Clinton of the Democrats had been expected to win.
Mrs Clinton managed to win the battlegrounds of Virginia and Colorado, but she needed to take Michigan, Nevada, Iowa and Pennsylvania to revive her chances. She also trailed in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Clinton has already thanked her supporters and also called Trump to congratulate him.
While she won the key demographic groups her campaign targeted, she underperformed President Obama across the board, even among women, according to exit poll data.
A slightly larger share of black and Latino voters cast ballots for Trump than supported Mitt Romney in 2012, despite Trump’s disparaging remarks on African-Americans, Mexicans and undocumented immigrants.
President Barack Obama, who captured the presidency with the help of the African-American and Latino communities, issued several personal pleas to black voters to back Clinton in recent weeks.
“If we let this thing slip and I’ve got a situation where my last two months in office are preparing for a transition to Donald Trump, whose staff people have said that their primary agenda is to have him in the first couple of weeks sitting in the Oval Office and reverse every single thing that we’ve done,” Obama said last week.
But not enough African-Americans and Latinos, heeded the call as 88% of African-American voters supported Clinton, versus 8% for Donald Trump, as of very early Wednesday morning.
“African-American, Latino and younger voters failed to show up at the polls in sufficient numbers Tuesday to propel Clinton into the White House,” CNN reports.
While that’s a large margin, it’s not as big as Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney in 2012. Obama locked up 93% of the black vote to Romney’s 7%.
12% of the electorate was African-American this year, compared to 13% four years ago. That’s a key drop, especially when paired with a smaller-than-expected growth in Latino votes.
Clinton’s support among Latinos even dropped, despite Trump pledging to build a wall on the Mexican border, accusing undocumented immigrants of being criminal aliens and promising to deport them.
Only 65% of Latinos backed her, while 29% cast their votes for Trump.
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