President-elect Donald Trump’s success at breaking the so-called “blue wall” – those Rust Belt states that had voted for a Democrat in every election since at least 1992 – was the key to his victory. To help understand how he did this, I compared exit poll data from the last three elections in those states – 2012, 2014, and 2016. There were three over-arching themes in terms of demographics: 1) Trump out-performed 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney among men, especially white men; 2) Clinton underperformed Pres. Obama’s 2012 margins with women and younger voters; 3) In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin the electorate was older than it was in 2012, but not as old as it was back in the mid-term election of 2014. CONT.
Amy Walter, Cook Political Report