Democrats are dishing plenty of blame for their presidential loss, but have not yet given much attention to the fact that they failed to persuade and turn out voters where they needed to win, particularly in Michigan (where Donald Trump won by 10,704 votes); Wisconsin (Trump won by 22,748 votes); Pennsylvania (Trump won by 44,292 votes); Florida (Trump won by 112,911 votes); and Ohio (Trump won by 446,841 votes). If Hillary Clinton won just about 78,000 more votes to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin alone, she would have won the presidency.
By contrast, Republicans were able to sway voters to win counties in key states that went twice for Barack Obama. There were four Obama-Trump counties in Pennsylvania (Chester, Erie, Luzerne, and Northampton) that gave Mr. Trump 326,607 votes (2,347 more votes than Mr. Obama won in these same counties in 2012) and four Obama-Trump counties in Florida (Jefferson, Monroe, Pinellas, and St. Lucie) that gave Mr. Trump 335,324 votes (7,002 more votes than Mr. Obama won in these same counties in 2012).
In Ohio there were seven Obama-Trump counties (Ashtabula, Erie, Ottawa, Portage, Sandusky, Stark, and Trumbull) that gave 259,318 votes to Mr. Trump; in Michigan there were twelve Obama-Trump counties (Bay, Calhoun, Eaton, Gogebic, Isabella, Lake, Macomb, Manistee, Monroe, Saginaw, Shiawassee, and Van Buren) that totaled 464,376 votes for Mr. Trump; and in Wisconsin, there were 23 Obama-Trump counties (Adams, Buffalo, Columbia, Crawford, Door, Dunn, Forest, Grant, Jackson, Juneau, Kenosha, Lafayette, Lincoln, Marquette, Pepin, Price, Racine, Richland, Sauk, Sawyer, Trempealeau, Vernon, and Winnebago) that gave Mr. Trump 263,634 votes.
2016 presents an opportunity for Republicans. They have a chance to keep these counties and swing states in their column in future elections, especially if Democrats refuse to confront the true reasons for their loss.
