On Election Night, the unlikely became a reality: Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States of America. In an election that will go down in history as one of the biggest upsets in political history, Trump came out on top, defying all the polls and all the conventional wisdom when it comes to predicting elections. The polls were wrong, the media was wrong, and Hillary Clinton was wrong, so just how did Trump pull off the upset?
Trump secured the presidency by gaining 279 electoral votes, even with Michigan and Arizona being too close to call. Trump picked up victories in major swing states including Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and Iowa with a combined 68 electoral votes between just those four states. Trump also managed to break Clinton’s “blue wall” including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and possibly Michigan, while also sweeping the southern states. Despite Trump winning the electoral college, Clinton won the popular vote by a little over 200,000 votes, one of the closest elections in history.
With the election behind him, Trump will now be focused on his transition into the White House, which includes picking cabinet members, a chief of staff, and all the other White House Advisers. Several names have rumored for various positions in the Trump Administration including Chris Christie for Attorney General, Rudy Giuliani for Secretary of Homeland Security, Newt Gingrich for chief of staff, Jeff Sessions for Secretary of Defense, and Trump Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway as a senior adviser.
Trump’s presidency is expected to get off to a running start, outlining a 100 day plan that includes repealing Obamacare, replacing the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, proposing a constitutional amendment to put term limits on Congress, withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and either withdraw from or renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). How much will Trump get done in those first 100 days? Who knows, but the start of Trump’s presidency is sure to be a busy one.
