How Many Counties DID Mr. Trump "Win" in 2016? - Granite Grok

How Many Counties DID Mr. Trump “Win” in 2016?

2016-election-by-county-640x417

I ran across some content that suggests that of the 3141 counties in the US Mr. Trump won all but 57. The Trump electoral map is impressive. A Sea of red with a splatter of blue. So, the 3084 to 57 stat is compelling. It’s also not quite right.

You can see it’s not right just looking at the map. So, how did we get here from there?

The original Breitbart article from which this is derived never suggests Trump won all but 57 counties. It was an analysis of Trump’s dominance in rural America compared to Hillary’s urban attraction. Which as you know, is not how we elect Presidents (yet). But if we did,

Hillary Clinton, … had an 8.2 million vote margin in a narrow band of 52 coastal counties and five “county equivalent” cities stretching from San Diego to Seattle on the West Coast and Northern Virginia to Boston on the East Coast. That narrow band included two major cities–Washington, D.C and Baltimore, Maryland–included in the five “county equivalent” cities, and three major cities–Philadelphia, New York, and Boston–which are included in the 52 counties.

If we did there’d be little point in having elections for the office outside the Democrat primary. Even if you can agree on how many counties there are not that it mattered.

  •  AP claims Clinton ‘won’ 487 while Trump won 2,626. (3113) Trump wins 84%
  • TIME says Trump won 2,649 to Hillary’s 503. (3152) Trump wins 84%

The answer to the question in the title is most of them or more than enough.

Reality Sandwich

Trump won at least 84% of counties and enough States to give him 306 Electoral votes. So, while the original piece was inaccurate the premise is still sound. To address that I’ve duplicated the premise with a few minor edits.

When you have a country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that the vote of those who inhabit (a few coastal urban areas) should dictate the outcome of a national election.

Large, densely populated Democrat cities (NYC, Chicago, LA, etc) don’t and shouldn’t speak for the rest of our country.

This minor re-write is both honest and entirely accurate and exactly why the Left wants to elect Presidents via national popular vote. Democrat socialism is an urban elite running everyone’s lives from a distant capital.

Trump crushed it. He won 84% of America, which is why we don’t elect presidents based on the popular vote (yet). God help us if ever we do.

 

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