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USA : It Is Not Our Election But Their Election

9 November 2016, 13:54

In the Midwest and Pennsylvania, Trump broke through in previously Democratic strongholds in the presidential race by combining large majorities in traditionally Republican rural areas with victories in smaller industrial cities that had voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. These included Eau Claire and La Crosse in Wisconsin; Saginaw, Bay City and Battle Creek in Michigan; Erie, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania.

Fueling Trump’s lead in the polls was a further shift by whites without a college education—characterized as “working-class whites” by the media, although many workers have a college degree—against the Democratic Party. While 40 percent of this demographic voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and he won a majority on their votes outside the South, only 27 percent voted for Hillary Clinton.

This reflects both the impact of the financial crash and the pro-corporate policies of the Obama administration on the jobs and living standards of the poorest sections of white workers, and the complete indifference of the Democratic Party to the plight of the working class as a whole. The Clinton campaign sought to mobilize voter turnout among black and other minority workers on the basis of identity politics, while offering no policies to benefit workers as a class.

Voter turnout was at record levels in many states—Florida alone saw one million more votes cast than in 2012—and there were long lines at polling places both in urban centers and in rural areas.

In the contest for control of the US Senate, where the Republican Party was widely expected to lose its 54–46 majority because 24 Republican seats were at stake compared to only 10 Democratic seats, the Democratic debacle was as pronounced as in the presidential race. As of this writing, only one Democratic challenger, Tammy Duckworth in Illinois, had ousted a Republican incumbent.

The networks confirmed that the Republicans would retain at least 51 seats in the Senate, guaranteeing their continued control of the upper legislative chamber. This puts a Trump administration in a position to determine the successor on the US Supreme Court to Antonin Scalia, the ideological leader of the far-right faction on the court who died earlier this year.

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