Why Hillary Clinton lost to Trump

Supporters of US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton react at the election night rally in Manhattan, New York. [PHOTO: REUTERS]

Hillary Clinton just could not hold onto Obama's 2012 strongholds.

That proved to be a large part of her undoing; that, and the fact that African-American, Latino and younger voters failed to show up at the polls in sufficient numbers.

Clinton conceded the race after 2am ET (10am East African time).

Before polls closed, her campaign was confident of victory. In the end, however, she lost even some states thought to be safely in her column, like Wisconsin. She trailed in others, like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

While she won the key demographic groups her campaign targeted, she under-performed President Obama's successful 2012 bid across the board.

Despite Trump's disparaging remarks on African-Americans, Mexicans and undocumented immigrants, a slightly larger share of black and Latino voters cast ballots for him than those that supported Mitt Romney in 2012.

President Barack Obama, who captured the presidency with the help of the African-American and Latino communities, had issued several personal pleas to black voters to back Clinton in recent weeks.

"If we let this thing slip and I've got a situation where my last two months in office are preparing for a transition to Donald Trump, whose staff people have said that their primary agenda is to have him in the first couple of weeks sitting in the Oval Office and reverse every single thing that we've done," he said.

But not enough African-Americans or Latinos heeded the call.

By Wednesday morning, some 88 per cent of African-American voters had supported Clinton against 8 per cent for Donald Trump. While that was a large margin, it was not as big as Obama's in 2012, when he took 93 per cent of the black vote.

Some 12 per cent of the electorate was African-American this year, compared to 13 per cent four years ago. That was a key drop, especially when paired with a smaller-than-expected growth in Latino votes.

Clinton's support among Latinos was even more tenuous, despite Trump pledging to build a wall on the Mexican border, accusing undocumented immigrants of being criminal aliens and promising to deport them.

Only 65 per cent of Latinos backed her, while 29 per cent cast their votes for Trump. In 2012, Obama won 71 per cent of the Hispanic vote.

Beyond the Obama coalition, Clinton was also not as popular with white voters as Obama was. She won only 37 per cent of the white vote, compared to Obama's 39 per cent.

Surprisingly, Trump also garnered a slightly smaller share than Romney did in 2012, capturing 58 per cent of the vote to Romney's 59 per cent. Asian voters were also less supportive of Clinton than of Obama. Some 65 per cent of Asian voters cast ballots for her as opposed to 73 per cent for Obama in 2012.

Clinton also failed to capture as many young voters, who flocked to her rival Bernie Sanders in the primary and to Obama four years ago. She won 55 per cent of voters aged 18 to 29, compared to 37 per cent who cast ballots for Trump.

But Obama secured 60 per cent of these young voters to Romney's 37 per cent.

Clinton won 54 per cent of women votes, compared to Trump's 42 per cent. Even though 70 per cent of voters said Trump's treatment of women bothered them, they still did not flock to the woman who could have broken the glass ceiling.

Obama won 55 per cent of the women's vote in 2012.