Clinton lost not because of a Trump surge, but because she will end up with several million fewer votes than President Obama got in 2012.
Some of the Democratic drop-off came in those heavily white blue-collar counties that Trump carried. In Lackawanna County, Pa., for example, the county that includes Scranton, where Vice President Joe Biden grew up, Clinton fell some 23,000 votes short of Obama’s mark.
Because she lost Pennsylvania by just over 68,000 votes out of almost 5.8 million cast, that deficit mattered greatly.
But Clinton also got about 37,000 fewer votes in Philadelphia than Obama achieved. Similarly, Clinton lags more than 78,000 votes behind Obama’s 2012 pace in Michigan’s Wayne County, home to Detroit, with some ballots still to be counted. As of Friday morning, Michigan remained too close to call, with Trump narrowly in the lead.
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