Above is a map of how non-Hispanic white men and women voted in the 2016 presidential election. Only two states voted democratic in every county – Massachusetts and Hawaii. Compare that to several states which voted Republican in every country (such as North Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc). One interesting side note: despite the majority of white people voting Republican in Nevada (in every county) the state voted Democratic as a whole in last year’s election.
Above is a map displaying how millennials voted in the 2016 election. If only millennials were able to vote, it would have been an overwhelming victory for the Democratic Party: 504 to 23. Demographers William Straus and Neil Howe define ‘Millennials’ as being born between 1982 and 2004 – however, there is not an exact dividing line. Birth years can range between 1983 and 2001 for some demographers, such as Elwood Carlson. What seems to be clear is that as millennials age and become a larger political force, the country may become increasingly democratic in future elections.
It’s informative to display how small of the country, by area, Hilary Clinton won in the 2016 Presidental Election. Above is a map of the regions of the country Hilary won (Clinton Islands) and below is the area of the country Trump won (Trumpland). Given the area difference alone, it appears that Trump won in a landslide, however, in fact, he lost the popular vote by more than 2% to Clinton! This is due to the large differences in population density each candidate won – put simply, Clinton won in the cities and Trump won in the rural areas. The highest percentage Trump supporting region was the central plans while the largest Clinton supporting regions were the San Francisco Bay Area and eastern seaboard running from Washington DC to Boston.
Not only did Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election, but both the House of Representative and the Senate are majority controlled by the Republican party. Above is a chart displaying which party has controlled congress and the presidency running back through 1855. The Senate is the top chart, the House is the bottom chart, and presidential party in office is the middle color strip between the two. The color indicates which party controlled each branch of congress and the height of the bars in each chart indicate what percentage the controlling party had in those years. Since the great depression, congress has been mostly controlled by the Democrats – having the majority of seats in both the Senate and House for 62 years out of the 84. Since the 1990’s, control in congress has narrowed between the two parties and control as flipped back-and-forth more often than in the previous periods. The 2017 version will feature Republican control in all three for the first time since President Bush II in 2008.
Above is a graphic displaying the Republican share of the two-party votes relative to square miles per voter (i.e. population density). As expected, Democrats won a larger fraction of urban areas, on average, while Republicans won more rural areas. Democrats also won a larger share of college graduates, all be it a slim margin 49% to 45%, but won by a substantial margin in both non-white college graduates and the non-white non-college graduate population – 71% and 75% respectively.
Below is a graphic displaying the percentage change in voting behavior for various demographic groups compared to the 2012 election. Trump won a larger percentage of votes in all categories (including Male, White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian) except for Women voters who voted by a 1% larger margin for Hillary than for Obama in 2012.
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