More than 200 people, many 

sitting on the floor to fit into the 
space, assembled Wednesday at the 
Ford School of Public Policy to listen 
to a panel of five professors and 
politicians analyze the results of 
the election and give projections on 
how future policy will be affected 
by President-elect Donald Trump.

The 
panel 
also 
answered 

audience questions on the social 
implications of Trump’s rhetoric 
and reasons for the election’s 
outcome.

Ron 
Weiser, 
former 
U.S. 

Ambassador and newly elected 
member of the University of 
Michigan’s 
Board 
of 
Regents, 

began his speech by saying he was 
just as shocked by Trump’s victory 
as everyone else. As a Republican 
on campus, he said he felt he was 
viewed in a different light by 
students.

“Yes, I’m a Republican, and 

yes, quite often on campus I feel 
unwelcome,” Weiser said. “I was 
surprised with the outcome, as most 
of the people in this room were.”

According to a Michigan Daily 

poll, 19 percent of students identify 
as Republican.

Speaking to the months to 

come, Weiser said he thinks there 
are positive outcomes of a Trump 
presidency. He added that he has 
seen a lot of political campaigns, 
and candidates say things that they 
don’t usually follow through on.

Following his remarks, multiple 

students 
directed 
questions 

toward Weiser regarding Trump’s 
controversial rhetoric throughout 
his campaign. Weiser said he had 
been accused of “Trumpism” in 
the past, adding that he finds those 
views despicable. Clarifying his 
views, Weiser said he supports 
Trump’s economic policies but does 
not agree with all of his rhetoric.

“We all make choices, and I’m 

an economic conservative and I 
think that some of the things that 
I believe in are fundamental, and 

I don’t believe that they’re being 
promoted in order to take advantage 
of the disadvantaged,” Weiser said. 
“I spent most of my life trying to 
help the disadvantaged, not take 
advantage of them.”

Former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, 

a panelist, said he was optimistic 
that the country will come together 
and work for the greater good of 
the people. He said the United 
States is still the greatest nation 
in the world and systems like the 
peaceful transfer of power between 
the president and his successor are 
what make it so prosperous.

“I am hopeful that we will find 

that those will not be thrown out 
the window, although Trump has 
said that he will do away with most 
of those things,” Dingell said.

The rest of the panel was not as 

optimistic, with all three female 
panelists noting citizen frustration 
as a driving force of Trump’s 
campaign and election win.

Political Science Prof. Mara 

Ostfeld, who was part of a research 
team that analyzed exit polls 

Tuesday, discussed three trends of 
the election: female voters, white 
male voters and Latino/African-
American voters. She said 40 
percent of white voters, according 
to the polls, felt that minorities 
are more privileged than white 
Americans, marked by a trend of 
white men shifting away from the 
Democratic Party.

Ostfeld said she believed that the 

race angle of these results is notable 
in analyzing the social identities and 
types of meaning that the parties 
are conjuring.

“It is important to contextualize 

in the Trump campaign that when it 
started immigration policy was the 
only policy on his website,” she said.

Ostfeld noted Florida, which 

went to Trump, was also a surprise 
in the polls, as analysts thought 
Democrats had a strong hold over 
the state due to its Latino voters. She 
added that, though Cubans moved 
away from the Republican Party in 
previous elections, this year was a 
dramatic shift back.

Public 
Policy 
Prof. 
Betsey 

Stevenson, shifting from discussing 
poll results to policies, noted 
stagnant wages as the motivation 
behind citizens looking for a 
difference in voting for Trump. 
However, she said she was not 
prepared to speak on Trump’s 
platform, as she was expecting a 
Clinton win and thought his policy 
plans were weak.

“I can tell you it’s not for lack 

of studying that I don’t know the 
Trump policy platform very well,” 
she said.

Stevenson added that because 

Obama focused on mostly partisan 
Democratic policy, there is a lot that 
can be undone by Trump. However, 
she said she thinks Trump is a big 
talker and likes to tell stories to the 
American people, but questioned 
whether he would follow through.

Building 
on 
Stevenson’s 

comments, Public Policy Prof. 
Marina 
Whitman 
discussed 

international 
trade 
policy 
and 

said there is a lot of asymmetry in 
a president’s power with respect 
to trade issues. As a result, she 

said Trump could tear up trade 
agreements with little concession 
from 
the 
other 
branches 
of 

government. 
He 
has 
openly 

criticized NAFTA throughout his 
campaign. 
However, 
Whitman 

noted that she did not believe 
he could totally alter all trade 
agreements.

“Will he tear up NAFTA? I don’t 

think that omelets can be converted 
back into eggs,” Whitman said. 

Rackham 
student 
Harry 

Wolberg, an attendee, said he was 
disappointed by the results of the 
election and thought that the results 
did not follow a logical process.

“I liked that it was a diverse 

panel,” he said. “I want to hear 
people talk more about policies 
that are going to be involved in the 
next administration. So there were 
a lot of questions devoted to that 
and it’s hard to tell what’s going to 
happen in the future, but I want to 
see how both sides respond to using 
evidence-based research for foreign 
policy.”

Panel of professors and politicians analyze unexpected Trump win

At event, Ron Weiser, incoming University of Michigan Regent, defends choice to support GOP nominee to students

KAELA THEUT
Daily Staff Reporter

gender and educational status 
— among other deviations — for 
voters in the 2016 presidential 
election.

While there is still much 

analysis to be completed in the 
coming days, so far it appears that 
middle-class, white America was 
the tipping point demographic in 
winning Trump the election.

Exit polls illustrate that women 

overwhelmingly 
supported 

Clinton overall, as did voters under 
the age of 45. Other than gender 
and age, race proved to be a strong 
indicator 
of 
which 
candidate 

demographic 
groups 
would 

support. As predicted by pollsters 
in previous samplings, 58 percent 
of white voters overall supported 
Trump while 74 percent of non-
white voters voted for Clinton.

Delving 
deeper 
into 
each 

demographic, race consistently 
emerged as a point of divide. Each 
age bracket of white voters had 
a majority that voted for Trump, 
while all age brackets of minority 
groups overwhelmingly supported 
Clinton. 
Additionally, 
white 

woman voted for Trump in much 
higher numbers than women of 
color.

For Josh Pasek, a professor 

of communication studies, one 
possible explanation of the failure 
of the polls stems from which 
voters were included.

“I’m 
guessing 
that 
what 

happened here is that a lot of the 
models that worked in the past … 
ended up undercutting the actual 
enthusiasm among Trump voters,” 
Pasek said. “That is largely because 
Trump voters aren’t traditional, 
regular, habitual voters. They were 
energized this time. And a lot of 

that is because the voter models 
under-predicted 
whether 
they 

turned out or not.”

Other than failure of the voter 

models, Traugott said there is also 
national pattern of rising rural 
support for Trump that likely 
wasn’t captured.

“The analysis of the exit polls 

show not only about who people 
voted for but why the selected the 
candidates that they did,” Traugott 
said. “It’s clear that Trump was the 
anti-establishment candidate. He 
campaigned against Washington. 
In hindsight, that turned out to be 
a powerful message.”

Educational 
attainment 
also 

proved to be a key indicator among 
voters in this election. Across 
almost every demographic, the 
majority of college graduates or 
postgraduates voted for Clinton, 
except for white college graduates 
who supported Trump by 4 percent 
over Clinton.

Turnout data is still being 

collected, but the data thus far 
suggests that 2016 voter turnout 
was up 4.7 percent around the 
country from the 2012 election, a 
trend that included Ann Arbor and 
the surrounding counties.

However, Pasek said despite 

the rise in voter turnout, it wasn’t 
enough for the Clinton campaign.

“If you look at the areas that 

have reported their full turnout 
numbers, it’s clear that the highest 
turnout was not in the city of 
Ann Arbor itself, it was in the 
surrounding areas,” Pasek said. 
“That is very telling. The kinds of 
turnout rates we were seeing were 
not the kinds of rates the Clinton 
campaign was hoping for if they 
wanted to have a clean win in the 
state.”

On 
campus, 
the 
average 

millennial voter both did and 
didn’t match up to national exit poll 
averages according to Michigan 

Daily survey data.

Similar 
to 
what 
the 
exit 

polls show, student voters at 
the University overwhelmingly 
supported 
Clinton 
— 
in 
the 

most recent poll, 76 percent of 
respondents said they planned 
on voting for her. University 
respondents differed from the 
national norm, however, in that 
more whites and males on campus 
showed 
support 
for 
Clinton 

rather than Trump, though it is 
worth noting that exit polls have 
suggested individuals nationwide 
concealed their vote for Trump in 
pre-election surveys.

In terms of partisanship, the 

election was broadly similar to past 
ones — young people, as well as 
minorities and women, continued 
to support Democrats while older 
generations and more white males 
continued to vote Republican.

Traugott said mobilizing every 

voter base was key in this election.

“Young people have a tendency 

to 
support 
the 
Democratic 

candidate over the Republican 
candidate, and it looks like the 
margin of victory is going to be 
very small,” Traugott said. “This is 
an example of how every little bit 
helps.”

Pasek said while this election 

continued to show an ideological 
divide based on age, the past few 
cycles are suggesting that electoral 
divisions are shifting more toward 
geographical differences.

“When 
you’re 
older, 
you 

accumulate more wealth, so the 
tendency is for people to become 
more conservative because they 
don’t want to see their wealth 
redistributed,” Pasek said. “But 
I think we are moving away 
from that, we are seeing larger 
demographic differences that are 
less about age and more about 
other things.”

POLLS
From Page 1A

the end of the campaign, Trump 
challenged 
those 
assumptions, 

claiming in his final campaign rally 
in Grand Rapids Monday that he 
would win the state, propelling his 
victory in the election as a whole.

“If we win Michigan, we will 

win this historic election and then 
we truly will be able to do all of the 
things we want to do,” he said at the 
time.

While the state did not ultimately 

secure Trump’s victory, the rapid 
changes in the state over the last few 
days before the election mirrored 
those in the states that did, such as 
Wisconsin.

Communications Studies Prof. 

Josh Pasek, an expert in public 
opinion and polling, said the race 
both in Michigan and across the 
country came down to a matter 
of turnout. The counties Clinton 
won, he said, had a lower turnout in 
groups that tend to favor her — such 
as minorities and young people — 
than she needed to win.

“The big notes have been that 

more white voters — in particular 
blue collar and rural — have voted 
in this election than in the past,” 
he said. “We did see that if Hillary 
Clinton wanted to win Michigan, 
she needed to turnout slightly 
better numbers than she did in the 
cities of Ann Arbor and Detroit than 

she did,” she said. “She didn’t do 
that, and it stops there.”

In Washtenaw County, which 

houses the University of Michigan, 
voter turnout was 65.6 percent. 
However, in the four precincts that 
feature many student voters, with 
polling locations in the Michigan 
Union and Michigan League, voter 

turnout ranged from 42.8 percent to 
49.71 percent.

Overall, 
voter 
turnout 
was 

noticeably higher in the more 
rural areas outside of Ann Arbor, 
according to a Washtenaw County 
map. Most voters in precincts in 
and near Ann Arbor voted for 
Clinton, while the areas farther 
from campus in the county cast 
more votes for Trump.

While the majority of students 

supported 
Clinton 
throughout 

the election season, according 
Michigan Daily election surveys, 
students 
didn’t 
appear 
very 

enthused about either Clinton 
or Trump while waiting in long 

polling lines at some locations 
on campus. Compared to 2012, 
when the youth, Black and Latino 
voters enthusiastically re-elected 
President Obama, this year seemed 
different.

Pasek said it is possible that if all 

students at the University had voted 
in the election, Clinton could have 
secured enough votes to win the 
state.

“There probably were enough 

non-voting 
students 
at 
the 

University of Michigan to be darn 
close in making up the difference 
between Trump and Clinton,” he 
said. “I think there is a case to be 
made that if you had gotten perfect 
University of Michigan turnout, 
Michigan would have had a much 
better chance of going Democrat.”

Democrats 
attempted 
to 

encourage the student vote on 
campus through Get Out the Vote 
efforts by campus organizations 
such as the University’s chapters 
of College Democrats and Students 
for Hillary, and campus visits 
from surrogates such as Sen. Tim 
Kaine (D-VA), Democratic vice 
presidential nominee, Sen. Bernie 
Sanders 
(I–Vt.) 
and 
President 

Barack Obama, who drew a crowd 
of 9,000 the day before the election.

However, Pasek said these efforts 

were not enough to overcome the 
traditionally low turnout numbers 
among young people.

“An 
enthusiasm 
difference 

makes a big difference,” he said. 

“The more people are hearing 
from surrogates they want to hear 
from, the more they want to turn 
out, and that is clearly the case for 
students, but we did see that Hillary 
Clinton still needed better turnout 
numbers.”

In 
her 
concession 
speech, 

Clinton appealed to young people, 
asking them to not give up hope 
because of her loss.

“To all of us, and to the young 

people in particular, I hope you 
will hear this. I have, as Tim said, 
I have spent my entire life fighting 
for what I believe in,” she said. 
“I’ve had successes and setbacks 
and sometimes painful ones. Many 
of you are at the beginning of your 
professional, public, and political 
careers — you will have successes 
and setbacks too. This loss hurts, 
but please never stop believing that 
fighting for what’s right is worth it.”

Pasek 
noted, 
however, 
that 

Clinton’s loss may deter voters 
from participating in the electoral 
process future.

“I think losing does diminish 

future 
participation,” 
he 
said. 

“When people first vote in an 
election and they win and feel like 
they made a difference, that is much 
more empowering than being on the 
losing side. It probably will for most 
college students mean that they will 
vote less often in the future.”

Beyond student concentration, 

turnout among other demographics 
in counties statewide also had a 

large impact on the state’s overall 
vote, similar to other late-emerging 
battlegrounds.

Wayne County, which houses 

Detroit, had an even lower voter 
turnout rate than Washtenaw at 
58.8 percent. In the city of Detroit 
turnout reflected that of Ann Arbor 
at 48.5 percent.

In 
contrast, 
Trump 
saw 

unexpectedly 
high 
turnout 

numbers nationwide, including in 
many Michigan communities, from 
his core demographic: working 
class white men.

LSA junior Nick Kolenda, the 

president of a Students for Sanders 
group active on campus during 
the Democratic primary, wrote 
in an email interview that he felt 
the Democrat Party’s shift toward 

the center on trade affected the 
outcome.

“Trump will likely have won 

due to high rural and white-
working class support which has 
become reactionary over the past 

decades,” he wrote. “Clinton and 
the center Democratic party’s 
neoliberalism/trade policy caused 
Clinton to underperform in the 
upper Midwest. The white working 
class, having been frightened off of 
socialism and unions, believed that 
a strongman could make their lives 
better.”

Throughout 
her 
time 

campaigning, Clinton and her 
surrogates made appeals to white 
working class voters through visits 
and speeches with union workers, 
but it was Trump’s message of 
change that swung their vote. 
According to the CNN exit poll in 
Michigan, 39 percent of voters said 
a candidate’s ability to bring change 
is the most important quality, with 
the number rising to 83 percent 
among Trump supporters.

Pasek said the white working 

class vote has been shifting to 
the right for several years now as 
globalization impacts that group 
more than any other.

“We’ve seen increasingly over 

the last few cycles additional 
challenges for the Democrats in 
holding union members,” he said. 
“Blue collar industries in general 
are areas that are getting hit 
more with globalization. On some 
level, the election ends up being 
a referendum on globalization in 
general and whether we should 
be having trade deals or be more 
isolationist.”

VOTE
From Page 1A

LSA senior, asked all individuals 
in the crowd to hold others 
accountable for discriminatory 
actions. 
He 
said 
minority 

students have had to be the 
ones responsible for calling out 
hate speech in the past, citing 
an incident last semester when 
Muslim students were the ones 
to wash off anti-Islamophobic 
chalk drawings on the Diag.

“To 
all 
that 
have 
been 

targeted or marginalized: You 
have a place on this campus,” 
he said. “The University of 
Michigan is yours just as much 
as anybody else’s. Don’t stop 
challenging each other. So I 
am challenging everyone here 
tonight who professes to be 
an ally — whenever you hear a 
microaggression, whenever you 
hear an act of discrimination and 
bigotry or injustice perpetrated 
by one of your friends or anyone 
of your acquaintances, step up 
and challenge them. Because 
if you don’t, you are part of the 
problem.”

LSA senior Tina Al-khersan 

told the crowd at the vigil 
several stories about her younger 
brother being asked if he had 
bombs underneath his coat in 
a response to Trump’s anti-
Muslim rhetoric, which has 
included 
statements 
about 

deporting Muslims due to their 
possibly being terrorists. 

Speaking before Al-khersan, 

University alum Harleen Kaur 
said she felt afraid for her life 
the day after Trump’s win.

“I simply ask for you to not 

be comfortable as we have after 
violence and tragedy countless 
times before,” Kaur said. “Do 

not let yourself be destroyed by 
fear but do not let yourself be 
wooed into calm. There’s work 
to be done.”

Multiple speakers at both the 

vigil and rally told the crowd 
they had the right to feel sadness 
about 
the 
election 
result, 

calling it a confirmation that 
the country does not support 
minorities.

At the vigil, Khamis said 

her family has not traveled to 
the United States only to be 
deported.

“We need to organize, we 

need to mobilize,” she said. 
“Remember this is not a new 
fight for my family, this is not a 
new fight for women, this is not 
a new fight for Latina/Latino, 
this is not a new fight for the 
LGBT+ community. This has 
been happening forever. But 
now we know that it has been 
institutionalized to the point it 
is in the White House.”

Earlier in the night at the 

rally, Public Policy graduate 
student 
Sundar 
Sharma 

expressed similar sentiments.

“(We must) grieve and rebuild 

… especially because of the 
forces trying to stop us,” Sharma 
said. “Trump and Trumpism 
isn’t going to be around forever.”

LSA 
senior 
Adedolapo 

Adeniji, whose parents are both 
immigrants to the United States, 
told the vigil crowd she was not 
going to stop fighting — and 
asked fellow students to do the 
same.

“I don’t care what the election 

said today,” she said. “I don’t 
care what it says in the next four 
years. 

VIGIL
From Page 1A

alarming seeing as they had 
all been perfectly fine with 
me 
supporting 
him 
before 

and during the election while 
Hillary Clinton was still in the 
race,” Kuchta said.

University 
administrators, 

including 
President 
Mark 

Schlissel 
and 
LSA 
Dean 

Andrew Martin, sent out emails 
Wednesday calling for unity, 
diversity 
and 
inclusiveness 

within 
the 
University 

community in the wake of the 
results.

“Our responsibility is to 

remain committed to education, 
discovery 
and 
intellectual 

honesty — and to diversity, 
equity and inclusion,” Schlissel 
wrote. “We are at our best 
when we come together to 
engage 
respectfully 
across 

our 
ideological 
differences; 

to 
support 
ALL 
who 
feel 

marginalized, 
threatened 
or 

unwelcome; 
and 
to 
pursue 

knowledge and understanding, 
as we always have, as the 
students, faculty and staff of the 
University of Michigan.”

LSA junior James Margard, 

a Clinton supporter, said he was 
disappointed with the outcome 
but wanted to see how and 
whether Trump will work to 
unify not only the country, but 
also the Republican Party.

“I’m disappointed in the 

result, but I will be interested to 
see how Trump works with the 
rest of the Republican Party, and 
to see how each party changes 
over the course of the next 
two years, especially fractures 
within the Republican Party,” 
Margard said.

UNITY
From Page 1A

“It probably will, for 

most college students, 

mean that they will 

vote less often.”

“Please never stop 

believing that 

fighting for what’s 

right is worth it.”

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, November 10, 2016 — 3A