Two Lines That Won Donald J. Trump the Presidency

When pundits, political scientists and election-watchers look back at presidential elections, there’s always a line or two that stand out as significant to the outcome. While elections aren’t won by soundbites alone, here are the two statements we believe exemplify why Donald J. Trump won the presidency against all odds.

I Am Your Voice

When delivering his acceptance speech for the nomination to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July, the New York businessman solidified his image as a blue collar billionaire by uttering four words.

“I am your voice,” he said after turning directly toward the camera, speaking to the millions of Americans watching at home. This election wasn’t a “white lashing” as the radical leftwing commentator Van Jones outrageously claimed on CNN on election night. What the former top Obama advisor still doesn’t seem to understand is millions of working class Americans–including all races and genders–felt forgotten and left behind.

That’s because they were, and Donald Trump knew they had been “ignored, neglected and abandoned.”

“Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been ignored, neglected and abandoned. … These are people who work hard but no longer have a voice,” Mr. Trump said. “I am your voice.”

Ultimately, working class men and women in the Rust Belt believed they could count on Mr. Trump, a self-made man who could not be bought, to be their voice. They wanted change and a voice against the forces of globalization and globalists ramming through trade deals that benefited big donors and decimated their neighborhoods.

And they put him over the top.

President-Elect Trump won more than 70 percent of the two-party working class vote, smashing the record set by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

“I really don’t think we can understate how incredible of an accomplishment it was for Donald Trump to basically run the table in the Rust Belt,” said PPD’s senior analyst and polling head Rich Baris. “In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania working class voters who supported Barack Obama twice supported Mr. Trump. That’s not an easy feat.”

Drain the Swamp

In Gettysburg in late October, Mr. Trump revealed his “Contract with the America Voter,” a plan vowing to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington, D.C. A review of the bold proposal by People’s Pundit Daily concluded, if Mr. Trump was elected and enacted the provisions, it would greatly reduce corruption and special interest influence.

But a review of the responses to the PPD U.S. Presidential Election Daily Tracking Poll in the days to follow showed 1) Republican voters rallied behind their guy and 2) independents moved toward the Republican presidential candidate and never moved back.