When the people of the United States cast their vote on Tuesday the 8th of November, Hillary Clinton was ahead in the polls. However, there was a sense that in these elections the polls shouldn´t be trusted.
On election night, when Florida, a state that had previously voted for Barack Obama twice, went to the republican nominee Donald Trump, the mood started to shift.
States that had voted for Democrats in previous elections shifted to the Republicans. Clinton lost Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan, all states that Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
In the end, Donald Trump won the election, even though Clinton won the popular vote. The scurrilous billionaire will be the president of the United States for the next four years.
Overall, the voter turnout was lowest in twenty years.
During the campaign, the image of a Trump supporter was that of an angry white male.
Nevertheless, it was the white women who voted Trump, who many women have accused of sexual harassment, to the Oval Office.
According to Fivethirtyeight, a website that focuses on opinion polls analysis, economics, politics and sports, 63 percent of white men voted for Trump and 31 percent for Clinton. 53 percent of white women voted for Trump and 43 for Hillary Clinton.
Despite her poor performance among women, there was one cohort that supported Clinton vehemently: young women. 63 percent of women aged between 18 to 29 years old voted for Clinton, while only 31 percent supported Trump.
The election result underlines a clear racial divide among Americans: white people voted for Trump, and African-americans and Hispanics voted for Clinton.
According to the Guardian, black men (80 percent) and women (94 percent) voted for Clinton. Latino men and women voted also for Clinton, although with lower numbers.
The votes also split with age. 52 percent of adults between 18 and 44 years old voted for the democratic nominee, and a majority (53 percent) of people aged over 44 voted for Donald Trump.
According to the New York Times, Clinton won the big cities, like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as well as the coastal areas of the United States.
Trump took many of the suburbs and over 80 percent of the nation’s counties.
Overall, the voter turnout was lowest in twenty years.
In the end, Donald Trump won the election, even though Clinton won the popular vote.
In addition to securing the White House for the next four years, the Republican party also maintained its majority in both chambers of the U.S. congress.
The congress is divided into the Senate and the House of Representatives. The election result means that the Republican party has at least two years of ”unified” government. In other words, Trump and his party now have a chance to reshape Washington.
The Republican elite is cautiously optimistic about its prospects.
”I think it’s always a mistake to misread your mandate. I don’t think we should act as if we’re going to be in power forever. We’re going to be an enthusiastic supporter [of Trump] almost all the time. When we have differences of opinion, I prefer that we work them out in private”, the Republican majority leader senator Mitch McConnell said in the Washington Post.
During his campaign, president-elect Trump vowed to overturn many of president Barack Obama`s reforms. For example, he promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as the Obamacare, and to tear the Iran nuclear deal, which he called ”the worst deal ever negotiated”.
However, in his first speech after the results were in, Trump seemed suprisingly amicable.
He congratulated Clinton for a hard-fought campaign, even though he has on numerous occasions called her a liar and stated that she should be arrested and jailed.
The change in rhetoric has led many of his opponents hoping that Trump would appease his policies. In his first interviews after the election, Trump has already seemed to withdraw some of his campaign promises.
The president-elect has promoted himself as a leader, who takes matters into his own hands and wants to cut red tape.
This has led many commentators to conclude that Trump wants to start his career as the president of the United States demonstratively.
Various media outlets have already speculated what actions Trump will take in his first days in office.
His campaign promises included a temporarily ban on Muslims from entering the US, deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants and building a wall on the US-Mexico border.
Trump echoed his promise of building a wall on CBS’ 60 Minutes. Although, he also stated that parts of the wall could be replaced with fences.
The newly elected president is currently assembling his cabinet. In one of his first acts as the president-elect, Trump appointed Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of the conservative and rightwing Breitbart News, as his White House Chief Strategist.
Bannon has been linked to the Alt-Right, an internet-based rightwing movement that has often used racist and provocative memes and slogans (Jylkkäri 9/2016).
In addition, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has reportedly emerged as the top candidate to serve as the secretary of state in Trump’s government. Some critics have already pointed to his lack of experience in foreign policy.
A seat in the US supreme court is a lifetime appointment.
Donald Trump’s presidency could also shift the power balance in the US courtrooms.
The US supreme court is hugely influential and it has been down to eight members after justice Antonin Scalia’s death last February. A seat in the US supreme court is a lifetime appointment.
The Republican party refused to even consider president Obama’s nomination of judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat. The move was considered a gamble that now seems to worked in favor of the Republicans.
Because there are many elderly members in the supreme court, Trump might be able to appoint multiple justices, even if he only serves for one term. For example, liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 83, is a cancer-survivor, and Democratic-appointed justice Stephen Breyer is 78 years old.
During his campaign, Trump demanded Ginsburg to resign. She had called the presidential nominee a faker and speculated about moving to New Zealand, if Trump were to win the election.
A conservative bloc could control the supreme court for decades. Abortion rights and the national right for same-sex marriage could be in danger. Currently the shorthanded court is split with four conservatives and four liberals.
The defeat of Hillary Clinton meant that the Democrats lost their chance to form a liberal-leaning majority in the country’s highest court for the first time since the 1970s.
President-elect Trump has already published a list of 21 judges, who he considers for the seat left empty by the death of Antonin Scalia.
All 21 names have conservative credentials with the usual hot-button issues like gun rights, death penalty and abortion.
He congratulated Clinton for a hard-fought campaign, even though he has on numerous occasions called her a liar and stated that she should be arrested and jailed.
Donald Trump’s presidency could shape the landscape – both political and cultural – of the United States for decades to come. But neither the Democrats nor Republicans know, what president Trump will do.
It’s safe to say that everybody is hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.