Donald Trump is new POTUS
In what can be said as one of the more nerve-wracking US elections to date, business tycoon Donald J. Trump is now President-elect of the United States.
POTUS DONALD J. TRUMP. The business tycoon, once compared to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, is elected President of the United States (POTUS). Screenshot from TIME Magazine Youtube page
According to data from the New York Times, Republican candidate Donald Trump led the presidential race with 276 electoral votes compared to 218 votes for Democrat candidate and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both candidates needed 270 votes, or an absolute majority vote, to win the election.
This marks the first time a Republican has been elected president since George W. Bush ended his term in 2009. His win also ushered in what can be called a “Republican take-over”, as the GOP (Grand Old Party) kept its control in the US Senate and House with a 51-47 and a 235-183 win over the Democrats in both Chambers of Congress.
Exit polls from CNN show that while a lot of people did vote for Clinton, Trump still led in certain parts of the demographic that mattered:
- Age: Trump won with voters aged 45 and up, the age group which comprised roughly 56% of voters.
- Race: Trump was the leading vote-getter amongst Caucasians, which accounted for 70% of respondents for exit polls.
- US-born citizens: 50% of US-born Citizens (91% of all respondents) chose Trump over Clinton.
Trump also got victories in Florida (29 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Ohio (18 electoral votes), Wisconsin (10 electoral votes), and Iowa (4 electoral votes). These five belong to the so-called “swing states” – states where neither the Democrats nor the Republicans had a significant number of supporters.
Electoral College Voting
The US does not decide on their presidency through a traditional means of election. They employ an electoral college, a voting system also employed in Germany, India, and Suriname.
An electoral college means the United States does not count how many votes a presidential candidate receives in the ballot; rather, it is decided by the number of electoral votes, or EVs.
There are a total of 538 EVs that can be earned in the US: 435 from the House of Representatives, 100 from the Senate, and 3 from the District of Columbia, where the White House, the US seat of power, resides. The number of EVs per state is generally proportionate to its size and population.
Electors are expected to vote for the candidate who wins the majority of a state’s popular vote. 48 states have a “winner-takes-all” method, where electors’ votes are awarded as a single bloc; i.e. getting more than 50% of the votes for a certain state lands you all the electoral votes for that state.
In the event of a tie (269 votes each), the House of Representatives and the Senate will vote for the President and Vice President.
Source: CNN Politics, New York Times, TIME Magazine, The Independent
