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On November 8, Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump surprised both himself and others as he defeated Democratic political veteran presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. In the election, the first female presidential candidate from one of the two major parties stood against an opponent who has been blamed for being misogynistic – an election that was marked by filth, insults and scandals.

• Why did not the candidate who won the most votes nationally win?
• Why was the outcome of the election different from what most commentators had predicted?
• In what area and groups was it Clinton lost the election and Trump won?
• What were the key success factors behind Trump’s election victory?

The relatively low turnout among traditional Democrats in key states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania indicates that Clinton did not meet people at home, while Trump in turn won with one of the lowest percentages in American history (about 46 percent of the vote).

2: Election, party system and electoral behavior

Presidential elections will be held every quarter of a year. In the Congress ( House of Representatives and Senate ), senators sit for periods of 6 years, congressional representatives for only 2 years. In other words, the entire House of Representatives (the House) and a third of the Senate stand for election every other quarter of a year. The second quarter of the congressional election thus coincides with the presidential election, and the second quarter is a so – called by-election – in the middle of the presidential term.

The midterm elections will also be important for the president; they serve as an opinion poll on how satisfied the voters are with what has been done so far. In addition, they may grant or deprive the President of a majority in one or both chambers of Congress. By-elections tend to have lower turnout than presidential elections, and it is often a more Republican-minded electorate (older and whiter than voters as well as in presidential elections) that appears in these elections. When the representatives in the House sit for only 2 years, this means campaigned almost all the time. Some believe that this “permanent election campaign” has contributed to less cooperation and friendship across the party. Before, it was more common to get to know each other across party lines.

Each state has two senators , while the number of representatives in the House varies according to the population of each state: The most populous are California, Texas, New York and Florida; The least populous are Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota and Alaska.

As a result of demographic shifts within the United States, the snow belt in the northeast is sending fewer representatives to the House in recent years; the sun belt in the southwest sends care. Latin in the south and southwest has become more important, while whites have less. In fact, Americans with a Latin American background have become a larger ethnic group than the historically largest minority group in the United States, namely African Americans : 17.6 percent against 13.3 percent. By 2050, the population group that identifies as “white” will no longer be in the majority in the United States, reports the US Census Bureau (figures from 2010).

Voters with an African-American background tend to vote for the Democratic Party (only 11 percent voted for Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, while in 2008 95 percent voted and in 2012 93 percent for Democrat Barack Obama,).

Latinos are often Catholics and often more conservative in value matters than other democratic voters. But when it comes to immigration policy – a field that often has personal significance for Latinos – Republicans are particularly conservative and therefore often push Latinos out of elections.

After Mitt Romney lost to Obama in 2012, the party wanted to appeal more to minority voters (meaning mainly Latin) and voters who are more liberal on value issues (such as gay marriage).

The Constitution is a cornerstone of the American political system. It maintains, among other things, four important principles: The United States, a country located in North America according to Collegesanduniversitiesinusa, must be one

• republic(as opposed to king and monarchy)
• federation (division of power between the central government and the individual states),
• have a division of power between the state powers(president / government, Congress and the judiciary)
• have a system for «checks and balances»(balancing the state powers)

Presidential elections in the United States are a result of this form of government. The presidential election is an indirect election in which delegates (electors) from each of the states in the federation vote for the president. This complicated system is the result of a compromise that the fathers of the constitution entered into in the 18th century. The compromise was that each state should have a certain number of so-called “voters” (more below) varying according to the population in the individual states .