Election Recap
“Unbelievable; we did not see this coming; impossible; how could this be; my crystal ball was smashed; boy did we get this one wrong!”…. These were but a few of the many reactionary comments made by pundits and Clinton supporters this morning as it began to sink in that Trump had upset Clinton. The nation experienced what our founding fathers would most likely describe, if they were alive today, as a needed correction in our Republic.
As the various candidate campaigns worked their respective ways thru the primaries and then the months leading up after the conventions, an underlying uneasiness began to emerge across America that few realized. Donald Trump recognized this phenomenon early on and built his unorthodox campaign around this collected sense of discontentment of those that felt the country was heading in the wrong direction and that their children’s lives would not be as good as theirs. Trump gave voice to this anxiety and capitalized on it to upset Hilary Clinton and her well-organized campaign machine in what many consider the most exciting and historical change election of our country’s history to become the 45th President of the United States.
Over the next several months and years, this election will be studied by both parties to see what happened and how the country has changed going forward. However, over the last several elections, many in the electorate have asked for change from their elected officials only to find the same processes and the same individuals in charge resulted in no changes. They were concerned with the elitists running the government and the unaccounted bureaucracy of unelected officials making laws. Speech after speech, election after election, they found no change which led them to believe their officials did not care about them or the fact they were falling behind, especially those in the middle class and in rural America. The pundits, pollsters and the Clinton campaign did not pick this up. This combined with the fact that people were hesitant to be honest with polling entities to disclose who they were voting for, or even talk to pollsters in the first place, all contributed to the failure of the “experts” to pick up the feelings and needs of the forgotten Americans.
The above fact, along with the constant dissemination of information relative to the questionable unsecured email server decision and the Clinton Foundation issues, contributed to the Clinton demise. But again, none of this was fully understood or reflected in the pre Election Day polls or exit polling. Dr. Larry Sabato commented on this elections’ polling misread, including his crystal ball failure that, “garbage in and garbage out” resulted in a complete misread of this election. They all used bad information or lacked proper information.
In his early morning speech after Hilary Clinton called to concede, Donald Trump emphasized that America needs to come together now and “bind the wounds of division.” He said what the country had just witnessed was not just a campaign but also a great movement with the work just beginning. He ended his acceptance speech by saying that the “forgotten men and women of this country will be forgotten no more.” Despite pundits calling this an historic election, Trump was quick to point out that “to be historic, we have to do a great job.” He will now move on to formalize his management team and transferring power in January.
As for the down ticket election results, the Democrats had hoped to take both the House and the Senate back into their control; they failed on both desires. As of this writing, there are still some states and races that need to be called but it is safe to say that in the Senate, the Democrats picked up a net one seat. This was the Illinois senate seat of Mark Kirk that most experts had always expected to flip and a hard-fought race for the New Hampshire senate seat of incumbent Kelly Ayotte. In the House, they needed at least 30 seats to gain the majority and most observers predicted a 15 – 20 pick up which was far less than what was needed. However, since that did not materialize currently they have won a net gain of 6 seats with some more to probably follow, but not the numbers originally envisioned.
Many in the press have suggested that Speaker Ryan would have a hard time keeping his Speaker position because of a smaller majority after the election, the Freedom Caucus opposition to him and the fact that he did not readily support Trump. What is not taken into account is that the Speaker’s primary duty was to maintain the House majority. He did this and in the course, has been the most prolific fundraiser as a Speaker that the Republican Party has ever had. This truly assisted in providing key races with the money needed to counter the vast resources of their opponents.
During the Trump Administration’s first hundred days, you can expect he will work with the Congress to repeal and replace Obama Care and work with them to lower the corporate tax rate including repatriating the huge stranded profits that have not been brought back to the U.S. due to the current tax structure. He will also immediately cancel most, if not all, of President Obama’s executive orders and nominate a conservative Supreme Court Justice to replace the deceased Justice Scalia. Unlike his predecessors of recent past, Trump begins his term with his party as the majority in both the House and the Senate, which should assist him in getting an agenda moving quickly. This also might be another election where the Electoral College winner does not win the popular vote. As more final results come in, more will be determined.
As this historic and unexpected election gets dissected, more information will be provided.
