Statistics of 2016 Election

In a time of shock, surprise and misunderstanding, it is important that we look at the empirical data collected from the election to understand how it resulted the way that it did. Analysts looked at voting demographics as results of exit polling. For a simpler overview, voters of the 2016 election can be broken down into five main categories: race, socioeconomic class, age, and gender. The education among voters, when expressed as functions of the other factors, uncovers big gaps in voters as well.Donald Trump won the popular votes among whites, 57 to 37 percent. However, the President-elect lost the vote among non-white voters to Hillary Clinton by a large gap of 74 to 21 percent. Within the non-white voters, Trump lost to Clinton 88 to 8 percent among African-American voters, 65 to 29 percent among Latino voters, and 65 to 29 percent among Asian voters. Among Trump’s majority of white voters, both college-grad and non college-grad white voters sided in the majority with Trump, while both college-grad and non college-grad non-white voters voted in the Majority for Hillary Clinton. Trump won the white vote and Hillary won the non-white vote.In a scope of socioeconomic class, there were not as large gaps as there were racially among voters. However, it is notable, despite Trump’s campaign initiative to better the lives of low-income families and “the disenfranchised,” Trump lost the vote among low-income voters. Voters with incomes lower than $50,000 a year voted in favor of Clinton (52 to 41 percent) which is a large gap. However, Trump did win voters with incomes of $50,000 a year or more, but by a small margin of two percent (49 to 47). Income was not as large of a gap among voters, especially voters with incomes of over $50,000. The votes were almost evenly split with no margins higher than two percent.The ages of voters expressed very large gaps among voters. Although Clinton won the popular vote among among voters aged 18-24 (56 to 35 percent) and voters overall under the age of 45, 52 to 40 percent, Trump did manage to win the older voters (53 to 44 percent).In terms of gender, Trump won male voters 53 to 41 percent. Clinton won female voters 54 to 42 percent. Each of the wins have roughly a 12 percent margin. Female voters voted in favor of Clinton, but shockingly, a large percent of them voted for Trump who won the majority of white female voters (53 to 43 percent). All other demographics, with the exception of white men, voted for Clinton. She won the majority of non-white males and females by a wide margins. However, looking closer into the white women voters reveals that in that category, Clinton actually won the majority of white women who had graduated college, while the majority of white women who had not graduated college voted for Trump.When looking at the education of voters, Trump won voters who had gone to high school or less (51 to 45 percent) and voters who had gone through some form of collegiate education but had never graduated (52 to 43 percent). Clinton won the voters who had either graduated college, 49 to 45 percent, or graduated both from college and graduate school (58 to 37 percent). It can be said, while looking at data, that Clinton won the “educated Americans” while Trump did not, but remember that these margins are not wide, but rather slim. Clinton won only by a large margin among voters who had attended graduate school. In all other circumstances involving education, the results were very close.The results of the election, though surprising to many, are not hard to fathom. The reality is that many in demographics, there was an almost even split right down the middle with support for each candidate. No matter how rigged or unfair conspiracies make of the election, Donald Trump won fair and square.