Cliffhanger for Clinton in the Rust Belt
Cliffhanger for Clinton in the Rust Belt:- Hillary Clinton’s reeling campaign is now hinging on three predominantly white industrial states that were never supposed to be in play.
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – and their combined 46 electoral votes – appear to be the last bastion of hope for her candidacy, after Florida, North Carolina and Ohio were called for Donald Trump.
None of the three have voted for Republicans since 1988, and all appeared until the final days of the campaign to be safely in Clinton’s column. Yet as the clock ticked past 11 p.m. on the East Coast, Trump led narrowly in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Clinton clung to a thin in Pennsylvania.
“All eyes on Michigan,” tweeted former Congressman John Dingell, as Clinton’s path to the presidency narrowed dramatically as the evening wore on.
Trump spent the waning days of the campaign barnstorming Michigan. He, his running mate Mike Pence and top surrogates like Sarah Palin hit crucial cities in the state in the final days, considered a last ditch attempt to salvage his candidacy. Instead, it appears that it was Clinton’s campaign that was triaging when she, Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama made last-minute stops there. With more than half of ballots counted in the state, Trump led by 24,000 votes.
Wisconsin, which is tipping toward Trump, was barely on the radar in the final weeks. Trump led by more than 55,000 votes with more than two-thirds of ballots counted.
Both Michigan and Wisconsin are packed with the kind of voters Trump hoped his candidacy would speak to – blue collar, white voters – who Trump argued were left behind as the economy recovered from the 2009 recession. He argued that multinational trade deals and a government too closely allied with Wall Street had ignored these voters at their peril.
There were warning signs that Clinton was weak in both Michigan and Wisconsin. She lost the primary in both to Democratic rival Bernie Sanders and rarely campaigned in either state since.
Source:- http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/pennsylvania-michigan-wisconsin-clinton-2016-presidential-election-231028
