As everyone knows by now, Trunp.45 is very big on firsts, of all kinds, especially politically themed comparisons. Here’s one accomplishment he has earned fair and square, and it is unlikely to be challenged for the next hundred years in American presidential politics.
A pathway to victory in a presidential election starts with the president’s own hometown. And in the last hundred years in America every President has won the hearts and votes of his hometown citizens.* Chosen by those who know him the best.
That is everybody until Trump.45 in 2016.
Here’s the Century Presidential List in reverse chronological order from 2016 backwards:.
- Donald J Trump (2016) LOST New York
- Barack Obama (2008, 2012) won Illinois
- George W. Bush (2000, 2004) won Texas
- Bill Clinton (1992, 1996) won Arkansas
- George H W Bush (1988) won Texas
- Ronald Reagan (1980, 1984) won California
- Jimmy Carter (1976) won Georgia
- Richard Nixon (1968, 1972) won California
- Lyndon Johnson (1964) won Texas
- Jack Kennedy (1960) won Massachusetts
- Dwight Eisenhower (1952, 1956) won Kansas
- Harry Truman (1948) won Missouri
- Franklin Roosevelt (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944) won New York
- Herbert Hoover (1928) won California
- Calvin Coolidge (1924) won Vermont
- Warren G Harding (1920) won Ohio
- Woodrow Wilson (1912, 1916) won Virginia
Sixteen Presidents through 26 elections from 1912 until 2016. Everyone a hometown (home state) winner.
And so on, and so on, and so forth…
Selected References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_home_state
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/
https://www.eduplace.com/parents/resources/homework/pdf/presidents.pdf
And Then There’s Trump.45 in 2016
A sad, sad story indeed.
New York City and New York State blow off the hometown boy: lifetime real estate mogul, reality TV star, hotelier, and businessman very big time.
Here are the hard to digest facts are stubborn things (FAST), plain and simple truth crusts. This is what the citizens of the entire Great State of New York and especially the Great City of New York City had to say about their political native son. This is no backwater contest; New York state has nearly 20 million residents (19.75 million), just over 6% of the entire United States population.
Remember please that Donald J. Trump was born and raised in New York City. He graduated from high school there and went to college at Fordham University in New York City for two years.
His family fortune, beginning with his grandmother and father’s firm (Elizabeth Trump & Son) was established in New York in 1923. Trump.45’s first and signature business deals, real estate, hotels, and condo developments were all in New York City. His business headquarters has been in New York City (in Manhattan) in Trump Tower since 1983. He is as New York born and bred as you can get, though in the last few years he has spent more time in Florida and golfing in New Jersey and elsewhere than before 2004.
Enough of Trump’s New York bona fides. There are deep and substantial roots, and they are the prime source of the greatest portion of what wealth he has acquired and inherited in his 71 years.
In the 2016 election, the great people of the state of New York handed Trump.45 a stinging state-wide loss to Hillary Clinton, 59% to a measly 36.5%, and an absolute vote deficit shellacking of more than 1.7 million votes (4.56 million to 2.82 million).
Six out of every 10 New York state voters rejected Trump.45, the home state boy.
That result alone was bad enough. What happened in the five boroughs comprising New York City proper, Ground Zero for Trump.45’s life and family business ventures for almost 100 years (1923-2018) was much worse.
Trump.45’s homiest turf is the great borough of Manhattan. Here he was battered and slammed for a pitiful loss by the margin of 86.6% to 9.7% (and more than 500,000 votes in one borough (New York City county).
In plain truth, Trump.45 couldn’t make 10% of the vote in his own family, personal, and business home town.
Similarly in Brooklyn, his Daddy’s lifelong home business turf, Trump was skewered by a big time loss of 499,000 votes. In Queens where the Trump family lived and Trump grew up, Trump.45 got smashed by a shortfall of more than 360,000 votes. In the Bronx where Trump’s grandfather Friedrich once lived Trump got creamed by a losing margin of more than 310,000 votes. That’s four out of five of the New York City borough limits.
There was one tiny glimmer of faint hope from Staten Island, the smallest of New York City boroughs. Here Trump.45 triumphed with a win of 101,000 to 74,000, a staggering win by a tad more than 27, 000 votes.
Overall in the city, Trump received a total of 495,000 votes; Clinton, on the other hand garnered a total of more than 2,160,000 in the same five boroughs. An historic win of almost 1 ¾ million votes in a single hometown city against Trump.45. In two different New York boroughs Clinton received more votes than Trump.45 did in all five boroughs of New York combined.
No matter how you look at it, the voting citizens of New York City bashed, battered, bombed, smashed, slaughtered, and scuttled Trump.45 and his campaign pretention to representing America’s everyman and everywoman.
New York has its fair share of the wealthy and elite members of society, but those numbers are vastly outgunned by the hundreds of thousands of regular folks: who live and work there: teachers, cabbies, cops, firemen, nurses, sanitation workers, truckers, delivery men, grocery clerks, sales representatives, wait staff, hotel service workers, bus drivers, repairmen, bike messengers, back office workers, medical techs, bakers, garment workers, ticket takers, subway workers, small business owners, construction workers, bartenders, domestic workers, white collar office workers, etc., etc., who make the city go every day 24/7/365, and keep the engines of commerce and the critical institutions of our society healthy and humming.
These masses turned out in droves, and they had their say, unaffected by Trump’s Russian bot buddies, FAKE NEWS, or anybody else. And the results weren’t close.
Note for the alternate legions ofTrump,45 fans elsewhere in America: Maybe the voting folks in New York were onto something. Maybe the people who know Trump best, having seen his routine in public for more than 40 years, get it.
To know him well, is not to hold him in high esteem as an honest, effective leader or moral example in New York City. It didn’t take the Access Hollywood tapes to clue them in; Trump has been tabloid fodder since the mid 1980’s in his hometown. His business and personal shenanigans in Atlantic City and elsewhere have been front page news in New York for decades. His cheating on workers, creditors, suppliers, investors, bankers, and business partners had been widely known since Trump Tower was built in 1983. And New Yorkers are tough, they’ve seen it all from the best and the worst characters for decades.
Lesson for the Country?
Trump.45 is the only U.S. President in more than 100 years to lose his primary home state (birth place, residence) during his election.
An unduplicated first, not rivaled in 100 years, and not likely to be challenged in the next 100 years of America’s political adventure.
One could accurately say that Donald Trump is the first Home State Carpet Bag President in modern U.S. history. Lose at Home, Win Elsewhere.
A Once in a Century Losing Record Platinum Achievement.
Now there’s a legacy to chew on. Besides the fact that Trump.45 lost the popular vote by more than 2.87 million votes (official tally), and more than 60% of that total loss came from New York, his very own home state. Even more poignant, fully 58% of that losing margin came just from the five boroughs of New York City alone, the very birthplace and progenitor of all things Trump in the United States.
Ouch!
*For the very pickiest of readers, there is always at least a small potential quibble. There can be a discrepancy between a President’s birth state and home state. After all, this is America and people move around. However, there is reasonable agreement about the principal state associated with each man who has held the job, usually involving his birth or residence state, but also most prominently the state of his major adult work.
I have chosen the state most often associated with each President at the time he was elected. For others, I have provided links to sort out further details for those interested.
Here is one chart to navigate potential glitches in home state assignment.
For example, Wilson’s birth and residence states are given as Virginia and New Jersey. I have chosen Virginia, as Wilson was born there, his Presidential Library is located there, and his time in New Jersey was largely as a result of his tenure as President of Princeton University. You may disagree. In any case, in 1912 Wilson won both Virginia and New Jersey; in 1916 he won Virginia, but lost New Jersey.
One more example. Both Bushes were born in New England (Massachusetts and Connecticut) but nearly the entirety of their lives and work after college has been based in Texas. Anybody who would attempt to claim George Bush was primarily a Yankee better get ready to duck. The family is Texas, plain and simple. I have assigned both men to the home state of Texas.
Selected Additional References for Presidential Home State Assignment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson
Looking at this summary chart of potential difficulties, one more fact emerges. In the history of the United States, not for 100 years, but as far back as Andrew Jackson in 1832 (185 years), nearly two centuries of our history, the only other double home state loser, besides Trump.45, was James Polk in 1844.
That crowns Trump as a Once in A Century and Three-Quarters Double Home State Presidential Loser.
And most people today, not in high school or history professors, may not remember who James Polk was. Here in Louisiana the percentage might be somewhat higher since we have a major military facility in Vernon Parish, in the northwest corner of our state (almost 200,000 acres) named Fort Polk, but not for our 11th President.
Which is too bad, since James Polk had a long history of active political service before he became President, and he has gained a fairly good reputation among professional historians. He also served as a Captain and then Colonel in the Tennessee State Militia, another distinction in his service to America compared to Trump.45 who avoided, evaded and/or deferred himself out of military service to his country five times in his younger years.
As for the real Polk who gave his name to the U.S. Army base here in Louisiana, that would be Leonidas Polk:
Fort Polk is a United States Army installation located in Vernon Parish, approximately ten miles east of Leesville, Louisiana, and thirty miles north of DeRidder in Beauregard Parish, Louisiana.
It was named in honor of the Right Reverend Leonidas Polk, the first Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana, and a distinguished Confederate general in the American Civil War. The post encompasses approximately 198,000 acres—100,000 acres are owned by the Department of the Army—98,125 acres by the U.S. Forest Service, mostly in the Kisatchie National Forest. Fort Polk is the only Combat Training Center that also trains and deploys combat units.
In 2013, there were 10,877 troops stationed at Fort Polk, which generated an annual payroll of $980 million. Louisiana officials lobbied the Army and the United States Congress to keep troop strength at full capacity despite looming defense cuts.
Fort Polk began as a base for the Louisiana Maneuvers in the 1940s. It served the 1st Armored Division in the 1950s, and became a basic training post during Vietnam War years of the 1960s and ’70s. It hosted the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) in the 1970s-1980s, and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in the 1990s and the 1st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, and the 162nd Infantry Brigade in the 2000s. Fort Polk is now home to the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, 115th Combat Support Hospital, U.S. Army Garrison and Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital.
The land that is now Fort Polk is part of a region of cultural resources, including archaeological sites, historic houses and structures, and other sites of historical value. The U.S. Army has spent considerable time, effort, and money on locating, identifying, and inventorying thousands of archaeological sites on Fort Polk and the property owned by the U.S. Forest Service where the army trains.