Republican candidate Donald Trump delivered what many political analysts, media watchers and pollsters consider a shocking upset by defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s much-anticipated presidential election.
The polling station at Seidersville Hall, Lower Saucon Township, Northampton County, Pa., on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016.
As of Wednesday morning several states–including Minnesota and New Hampshire–remained too close to call, but those results ultimately won’t matter, as Trump has surpassed the electoral vote total (270) needed to win the presidency.
According to the New York Times, Trump has received 279 electoral votes to Clinton’s 218, although Clinton had received slightly more votes nationwide.
In the U.S., it is electoral votes which determine the winner of a presidential election; not the popular vote.
Pennsylvania–which has reliably voted for Democratic candidates in recent presidential elections–is one of several key “battleground states” Trump successfully “flipped,” along with Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Florida.
According to the New York Times’ national election map, Trump received 2,912,351 votes (or 48.8 percent of the total) to Clinton’s 2,844,339 (47.4 percent) to win Pennsylvania’s coveted 20 electoral votes. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received 142,623 votes (2.4 percent) in the Keystone State.
The Lehigh Valley was split between support for Clinton and Trump, with Northampton County voters favoring Trump by a margin of 49.6 percent to 45.8 percent, according to unofficial Northampton County vote totals.
Lehigh County, however, supported Clinton by a margin of 50.4 percent to 45.9 percent, according to the New York Times map of the state.
The only Pennsylvania county adjacent to Northampton County that Trump won was Carbon, with Clinton narrowly prevailing in Monroe County to the north and Bucks County to the south.
Locally, the Saucon Valley, favored Trump.
In traditionally Democratic Hellertown borough, two of three wards were won by the Republican, and in the third (District 3) voters cast an equal number of votes (524) for each candidate, according to unofficial county results.
In District 1 Trump received 457 votes to Clinton’s 440, and in District 2 Trump received 368 votes to Clinton’s 317, according to the same results.
Trump received a total of 1,349 votes and Clinton a total of 1,281 votes in the borough, which has 3,887 registered voters in total.
The turnout at the polls was thus very high, with an average of 71.36 percent of registered voters in the borough casting ballots, according to the unofficial results.
In Lower Saucon Township, turnout was even higher than in Hellertown, with an average of 76.77 registered voters casting ballots at the township’s eight precincts.
The highest turnout was at District 6 (Wassergass), where a total of 883 people–or 80.86 percent of registered voters–cast ballots.
In most presidential elections, turnout averages between 50 and 60 percent.
Trump carried 7 of 8 township precincts–in most cases by significant margins–with the exception of Ward 8, where Clinton received 448 votes (49.78 percent) to Trump’s 418 votes (46.44 percent), according to the county’s unofficial results.
Overall, 3,375 votes were cast for Trump and 2,637 votes were cast for Clinton in Lower Saucon, giving Trump a margin of victory of nearly 25 percent in the township.
Voters at several polling stations such as Leithsville reported waiting for as long as an hour to cast their ballot, which was because of the extraordinary turnout and because voting machines are allocated to polling places by the county based upon the prior year’s election turnout, an elected official said.
Lower Saucon Township Constable Frank Kozero said “Lower Saucon polls were safe (and) secure” with “no major issues” thanks to the work of deputies assigned to each district.
Note: All county results cited in this article are unofficial until certified by the Northampton County Office of Voter Registration.
