Why Donald Trump Won the 2016 Presidential Election

Answer

Why Donald Trump Won the 2016 Presidential Election

            The United States has experienced numerous presidential elections in the past, but the 2016 poll was considered one of the most significant and unique elections in history. The uniqueness of the poll surrounded the nominees of the presidential election. Hillary Clinton became the first woman in American history to lead a majority party ticket. The nomination of Donald Trump also came as a surprise to many political pundits. The race and campaigns challenged the nation to face ideological, racial and gender divisions since the two contenders represented different ideologies and demographics. Throughout the campaign period, the Republican candidate seemed to have the lowest favorability ratings and a poll ceiling of about 44%. However, this was not the case on the election day. Trumps decisive win Stunned many political experts both locally and internationally. This paper discusses the reasons that contributed to Donald Trump’s victory in the2016 Presidential Election.

            Like any other political aspirant, Donald Trump faced many challenges and setbacks during the campaign period including numerous accusations of sexual assault and the online circulation of the Access Hollywood videotape. Despite all these challenges, to many people’s surprise, he was declared the winner of the presidential poll with 306 electoral votes. Several factors contributed to his surprising win.

            First is the James Comey factor, where Donald Trump’s chances were boosted by the announcement made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James B. Comey. July 5th, 2016 marked one of the most surprising and critical days of the campaign period (Balz & Rucker, 2016). The FBI director announced that the Justice Department did not intend to prosecute Hillary Clinton for the use of a private email account during her time as the secretary of State. However, he mentioned in the announcement that Clinton was very careless in handling classified information (Balz & Rucker, 2016). According to Steven Ginsberg, a senior politics editor at The Washington Post who was with Trump during the announcement, the director's statement was big for Trump since it enabled him to gain momentum by convincing Americans that if Clinton cannot keep her emails safe, then she cannot keep the country safe.

            In addition, just eleven days before the election on October 28th, the FBI director James B. Comey sent a letter to Congress indicating that there were more evidence and potentially additional troubles for Hillary Clinton (Balz & Rucker, 2016). The news about the reopening of the investigation on Clinton during the later days of the campaign made the polls tighter than ever.  During this period, Trump consolidated his support from strong-willed conservatives by destroying Hillary’s hope of providing compelling final information to the voters. I believe the actions of the FBI director played a part in Donald Trump’s win because his significant rise in favorability standings happened between the first announcement and the second, later detailing the reopening of the investigation on Clinton’s email Server.

            Further, nationalistic policies played a crucial role in the 2016 elections. Donald Trump in particular based his whole presidential campaign on two major controversial policies; free trade and liberal immigration (Gaughan, 2016). These policies contributed to his win since they resonated most with his support base. In his announcement speech, he pledged to deport over ten million illegal immigrants, build a wall on the Mexican border and alter free trade agreements to regain manufacturing jobs for American citizens. Despite constant attack and condemnation from his critics on his brutal attack on Muslims and immigrants, Trump understood the hostility towards free trade and immigration among American voters especially working-class white men and women without college degrees who felt ignored by the establishment (Zurcher, 2016). The impact of the nationalistic policies proposed by Trump was evident in his performance in conventionally blue States of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. All these states have a large population of white working-class voters and had predominantly supported the Democrat candidates. Immigration and trade policies contributed to Trump’s performance in these States because the previous Republican candidates like Mitt Romney who supported free trade, and John McCain, who advocated for liberal immigration policies, all failed to connect with blue color voters in these regions (Gaughan, 2016). The anti-immigration and regulated trade enabled Trump to connect with white working-class voters thus improving his chances of winning the election.

            Moreover, Trump's anti-establishment strategy appealed to many voters. Being an outsider in the political scene with no office experience, Donald Trump was able to exploit the public hostility that existed towards the media, political and business leaders in the country by positioning himself as an ambassador for change (Gaughan, 2016). At the time, many people believed that the country was heading in the wrong direction and the anger and volatile public mood were evident in the elections. Trump's anti-establishment spirit, as well as his unorthodox divisive politics, appeared genuine to many voters than Clinton’s style which was more controlled and cautious. This tactic worked for Trump because the American society was already angry at the establishments and divided along racial, gender and class lines. He exploited this divisibility by being unpredictable and posing as an agent of change. He also used Clinton’s experience in the Senate, White House, and state department to prove to voters that she supported the status quo. This made many voters to view Clinton as a candidate for existing establishment thus affected her campaign efforts. This strategy has worked in American politics before. In 1992, Bill Clinton used the same anti-establishment approach and won the election, a move that was depicted later by George W. Bush to win over Vice President Al Gore.                     

            Another reason was Donald Trump’s celebrity status which also contributed to his presidential win. It is commonly held in the political arena that for an outsider candidate to undertake successful campaigns, they must have a proper organization in place. However, in Trump’s case, the grassroots organization was not required since he had been in the public eye for over 30 years before his presidential aspiration. This implies that by the time he was declared the party nominee, he had 100% name recognition among the American voters (The Guardian, 2016). His status also enabled him to attract relentless free media coverage from the time he entered the presidential race. According to Schroeder (2016), Trump broke the record by attracting about $3 billion in free advertisements between May 2015 and May 2016. This was more than any other candidate in both parties. This intensive enabled him to reach his core base using the contradictory policies that he knew would resonate with many voters.

            In summary, Donald Trump’s win came as a shock to many, but the above factors partially contributed to his triumph. The victory shocked many because the national polls gave Hillary a 3-point overall lead and 300 electoral votes. The inaccuracy of the polls can be attributed to the silence of some of the Trump supporters who were not willing to share their opinions.