bye-ku for hillary clinton i<u+2019>m ruing the day that al gore invented the internet. please print monday night your humble columnist had a drink with a friend, a college-educated female millennial who planned to vote for donald trump. she was optimistic about her candidate<u+2019>s prospects, saying it reminded her a lot of britain<u+2019>s vote in june to leave the european union. we agreed election eve had something of the feel of brexit, with supporters of the status quo anxiously reassuring themselves that victory was all but assured, though the polls gave reason for uncertainty. but, we cautioned our friend, the emotional resonance was no guarantee of the outcome. in the event, the analogy held up well. it was hours before any of the swing states were called, and the first couple of them went to hillary clinton. but slowly it became clear that trump could win, and then that he would win. after 2 a.m., she phoned him to concede, and he took the stage to declare victory. follow james on twitter trump won because he was able to make inroads into what had long been democratic states. he won every state mitt romney carried in 2012, including north carolina. (some news organizations, including the wall street journal , have not yet called arizona, but as we write, he is up by more than 4%, with 98% of precincts reporting.) he lost several of the 2004 red states (colorado, nevada, new mexico and virginia) but retook florida, iowa and ohio. and he carried pennsylvania, which hasn<u+2019>t backed a republican since george h.w. bush in 1988, and wisconsin, which last went republican in 1984. he also leads in michigan and narrowly trails in new hampshire, which last went republican in 1988 and 2000, respectively. in maine, which allocates two of its electoral votes by congressional district, mrs. clinton prevailed 3-1. if the current leads hold, he will end up with 306 electoral votes to her 232. trump is likely to be a minority president: <u+201c>as of 12:33 p.m. et [today], clinton had amassed 59,583,144 votes nationally, to trump<u+2019>s 59,344,988<u+2014>a margin of 238,156 that puts clinton on track to become the fifth u.s. presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election,<u+201d> npr reports. the list of winners includes john quincy adams, elected by the house in 1824, along with rutherford b. hayes (1876), benjamin harrison (1888) and george w. bush (2000). but like in 1888, the electoral college result is unambiguous and the election will not be disputed. democrats and nevertrump republicans may point out that the gop has now <u+201c>lost the popular vote<u+201d> in six out of the past seven elections, but the down-ballot results make that argument hard to sustain. republicans suffered modest congressional losses, not surprising after their excellent showings in 2010 senate and 2014 house elections. in the house, the gop will have at least 239 seats, a maximum loss of six; four races are still outstanding by the journal<u+2019>s tally. (actually five, but one, in louisiana, will go to a runoff between two republicans.) the gop will likely have either 52 or 53 seats in the senate; a louisiana runoff is expected to go to the remaining republican, and new hampshire incumbent kelly ayotte trails by some 700 votes. so far the only seat to switch parties is illinois, where rep. tammy duckworth trounced sen. mark kirk. for most of the past year, this columnist has been a relatively lonely voice arguing that trump could<u+2014>though by no means necessarily would<u+2014>pull off what still must be reckoned a stunning upset. his weaknesses were manifest, but then so were hers; and she sorely lacked the natural political talent that was his great strength. not since richard nixon, in our admittedly subjective judgment, had the less charismatic major-party candidate been elected president. at one point last month we thought he was finished<u+2014>after the release of the 2005 <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> video and several women<u+2019>s subsequent accusations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted them. why did that turn out not to be disqualifying? in part no doubt because the oct.<u+00a0>28 revelation that mrs. clinton was once again under fbi investigation shifted the focus from his misdeeds to hers. but also perhaps because of the bill clinton precedent. mr. clinton<u+2014>as trump reminded americans at several points during the campaign<u+2014>also had a history of sexually predatory behavior, at which voters shrugged. so did prominent feminists, hypocritically, perhaps (as we theorized in february ) in the expectation that their reward for standing behind mr. clinton would be an eventual presidency for mrs. clinton. of course standards have changed since the 1990s, and it<u+2019>s possible that trump<u+2019>s piggish statements and the alleged corresponding behavior would have been disqualifying had his opponent not been named clinton. trump<u+2019>s detractors denounced his conservative christian supporters for looking past his personal misconduct in the interest of policy, but it was perhaps unreasonable to expect them to behave differently in this regard from the way feminists did in the 1990s. trump<u+2019>s victory can be taken more broadly as a lesson in the political perils of nepotism. in the primaries and the general election, he managed to defeat both the bush and clinton dynasties. the new york times has a fascinating visualization, based on exit polls, that shows how trump performed in various demographic groups relative to the previous three republican nominees. some of the results are unsurprising: his margin was much wider than romney<u+2019>s among whites without a college degree and considerably narrower among whites with a degree. all told, he improved only slightly among whites. but some of the results ran counter to expectations. trump also improved over romney<u+2019>s (losing) margins among blacks, hispanics and asian-americans, and his gains among all three groups were greater (in percentage terms) than among whites. and while the <u+201c>gender gap<u+201d> was enormous<u+2014>both trump<u+2019>s margin among men and mrs. clinton<u+2019>s among women were over 10%<u+2014>trump did only slightly worse than romney with women and considerably better among men. many in the media are kicking themselves, and deservedly so, over the way their organizations covered the campaign<u+2014>though not all are especially clear-eyed about what went wrong. <u+201c>to put it bluntly, the media missed the story,<u+201d> writes margaret sullivan of the washington post: and that<u+2019>s the problem, isn<u+2019>t it? it<u+2019>s not just that journalists were naive or even ignorant, it<u+2019>s that their work was suffused with hostility, even bigotry. another way of putting sullivan<u+2019>s <u+201c>america was better than that<u+201d> is <u+201c>we were better than them.<u+201d> the new york times<u+2019>s jim rutenberg comes closer to acknowledging the point: tellingly, though, rutenberg doesn<u+2019>t acknowledge another of his earlier columns, the one that ran on the times<u+2019>s front page and argued that because trump was so odious, journalists would <u+201c>have to throw out the textbook<u+201d> and cover the campaign in an <u+201c>oppositional<u+201d> manner. motivated by prejudice, many in the media threw aside standards of fairness and balance and even the pretense thereof. that didn<u+2019>t prevent a trump presidency and might even have helped bring it about. it certainly heightened the media<u+2019>s crisis of credibility. two papers in one! two former enron advisers in one! why do bad things always happen to them? we blame george w. bush <u+201c>how obama inadvertently set the stage for trump<u+2019>s presidency<u+201d><u+2014>headline, nationaljournal.com, nov.<u+00a0>9 what would we do without experts? <u+201c>spend climate cash smartly to make it stretch, experts urge<u+201d><u+2014>headline, reuters, nov.<u+00a0>8 world ends, etc. <u+201c>remembering all the women who didn<u+2019>t live to vote on this historic election day<u+201d><u+2014>headline, washington post website, nov.<u+00a0>8 generalissimo francisco franco is still dead <u+201c>donald trump<u+2019>s campaign and the media are still wondering when he<u+2019>ll pivot to the general election<u+201d><u+2014>headline, salon, nov.<u+00a0>8 make that 10 hypothesis and proof the lonely lives of voters <u+201c>i had trouble voting today and i<u+2019>m sure i<u+2019>m not alone<u+201d><u+2014>headline, federalist, nov.<u+00a0>8 hey, kids! what time is it? question and answer<u+2014>i question and answer<u+2014>ii question and answer<u+2014>iii question and answer<u+2014>iv look out below! <u+201c>breast augmentation surgery is in free fall, which is bad news for victoria<u+2019>s secret<u+201d><u+2014>headline, cnbc (via yahoo! finance), nov.<u+00a0>7 it<u+2019>s always in the last place you look <u+201c>hillary clinton gets blindsided by change again: how the white house<u+2014>and so much more<u+2014>was lost<u+201d><u+2014>headline, salon, nov.<u+00a0>9 everything seemingly is spinning out of control <u+201c>french ambassador to the us says the <u+2018>world is collapsing<u+2019> as donald trump looks set to become president<u+201d><u+2014>headline, daily mirror (london), nov.<u+00a0>9 breaking news from 1999 <u+201c>party at the intersection of clinton & president streets tonight<u+201d><u+2014>headline, gothamist, nov.<u+00a0>8 news you can use <u+201c>this is a terrifying moment for america. hold your loved ones close<u+201d><u+2014>headline, guardian (london), nov.<u+00a0>9 bottom story of the day <u+201c>merkel weighs in on prospect of first ever woman u.s. president<u+201d><u+2014>headline, bloomberg, nov.<u+00a0>8 trump ate my homework students at america<u+2019>s top universities were less than elated by the election results. <u+201c>teary eyes, bowed heads and cries of disbelief emerged from election-watching gatherings on [the] yale campus,<u+201d> reports the yale daily news: so the guy who<u+2019>s for trump is afraid to be named publicly, but the guy who thinks fascism is dawning has no such hesitation. more: we<u+2019>re not sure if this part is serious, as the acronym for freshman outdoor orientation leaders is fool. meanwhile at brown, there<u+2019>s this from the daily herald : aha. the herald also reports on a panel of political scientists, introduced by edward steinfeld: the panel was sponsored by an outfit called the watson institute, which sounds like it should be in an elementary school. the columbia spectator reports that some profs at the upper manhattan campus <u+201c>have postponed midterm examinations<u+201d>: but at harvard, the crimson reports, <u+201c>students, realizing that clinton may not win, began to do homework.<u+201d> desperate times call for desperate measures. follow @jamestaranto on twitter. join fans of best of the web today on facebook. subscribe to the best of the web email with one click. (carol muller helps compile best of the web. thanks to tony lima, macrena sailor, rob slocum, michele schiesser, eric jensen, don undis, irene deblasio, mara gold, rod pennington, marcia wilson, wes mitchell, david hallstrom, robert lamoureux, kevin burns, daniel lepanto, chris papouras, jon putnam, ray hull, wes van fleet, richard belzer, norman blanton, mike lavender, paul stewart, debbie wells, sean kelly, michael segal, bruce goldman, ethel fenig, john gaylord, scott syfert, bob wukitsch, paul mccarthy, dennis giangreco, eileen winkelman, david zeckenhausen, joel dubow, douglas macmillan, henry de fiebre, miguel rakiewicz, thomas brown, mark zoeller, steven getman, michael kingsley, philip ellison, michael smith, bill long, ed lasky, steve obeda, keith parker, todd janus, leo dombrowski, john sanders, elena dion, eric zuercher, t.k. smyth, daniel mullen and kyle kyllan. if you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com , and please include the url.)
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