washington<u+2014>the race for the white house turned into a neck-and-neck contest largely because donald trump was running up wide margins in rural and blue-collar parts of the country, while hillary clinton showed a weakened hold on the major, urban areas where democrats traditionally score big. exit polls and early vote counts suggested that mrs. clinton failed to match president barack obama <u+2019>s strong showing among african-american voters, with negative effects in several big, industrialized states. philadelphia, a vote-producing machine for democrats, was yielding 46,000 fewer votes for mrs. clinton than it had for the president in 2012, one reason she lost pennsylvania. mrs. clinton took a larger hit in detroit, where her winning margin was about 160,000 votes smaller than mr. obama<u+2019>s four years ago. mr. trump magnified his opponent<u+2019>s problem by defying expectations that his support among minority groups would collapse, due to his disparaging remarks about illegal immigrants from mexico and proposal to ban the entry of muslims to the u.s. instead, mr. trump was on track to claim a larger share of minority voters than had mitt romney, the gop nominee in 2012. mr. trump was drawing 29% of hispanics, 2 points higher than mr. romney<u+2019>s share, and 29% of asians, 3 points higher than his predecessor. those margins helped mr. trump offset the fact that white voters accounted for a smaller share of the electorate<u+2014>some 70%, compared with 72% in 2012, in keeping with the decline of 2 % to 3 % that has occurred with each recent presidential election. but beyond limiting his losses among minority voters, mr. trump<u+2019>s surprising strength came through producing big margins in the nation<u+2019>s blue-collar cities and smaller communities. mrs. clinton posted strong numbers among florida<u+2019>s hispanic voters. yet, mr. trump carried florida, according to associated press projections, by accumulating votes outside big, metropolitan areas. in largely white and retiree-rich hernando county, for example, the gop<u+2019>s 9-point margin from 2012 grew to 29 points. mr. trump also was posting strong margins in the blue-collar counties of pennsylvania and the industrial midwest. in working-class luzerne county, pa., for example, he turned a 5-point democratic lead from 2012 into a 13-point gop advantage. manufacturing-heavy parts of ohio also turned toward mr. trump: stark county, which includes the former steel-industry hub of canton, divided its vote evenly in 2012. on tuesday, mr. trump was carrying it by 17 points. lorain county, west of cleveland, favored mr. obama by 14 points in the last election. on tuesday, mr. trump fought there to a tie. <u+201c>what we<u+2019>re seeing across the country is that trump is just outperforming other recent republican candidates in a lot of these smaller, rural areas, and in small towns<u+2014>in some areas that were once democratic,<u+201d> said alan abramowitz, a political scientist at emory university in atlanta. <u+201c>he<u+2019>s getting huge margins out of these rural areas.<u+201d> many gop leaders had been wary of mr. trump<u+2019>s campaign strategy. mr. romney, the 2012 gop nominee, had won white voters by 20 percentage points and yet lost the election that year<u+2014>a marker of the growing power of nonwhite voters. party leaders cited that result as a sign that the gop likely couldn<u+2019>t build a national coalition without broadening its base. mr. trump, in essence, ran a test of that conclusion. he focused on trying to draw economically anxious working-class voters to the polls with an agenda skeptical of free trade and immigration, and an aggressive personality meant to signal that he would change washington. many gop leaders feared that he, like mr. romney, would win the white vote but lose the election. but the strategy was far more successful than pre-election polling suggested. mr. trump carried working-class, white voters<u+2014>those without a four-year college degree<u+2014>by 39 percentage points, exit polls showed, significant improvement on mr. romney<u+2019>s 26-point advantage. capital journal is wsj.com<u+2019>s home for election 2016 news. and while mr. trump drove away or failed to gain ground with many other voter groups in the process, his losses were narrower than expected. many pre-election polls put mrs. clinton on track to be the first democrat in decades<u+2014>or by some measures the first since the advent of modern polling<u+2014>to win white voters with four-year college degrees. mr. trump<u+2019>s message of economic decline appeared to have less pull among these voters. college-educated white women, in particular, favored mrs. clinton, and they stuck with her on tuesday, exit polls showed. overall, however, mr. trump won college-educated white voters by 4 points<u+2014>weaker than mr. romney<u+2019>s 14-point margin, but not as bad as some in the party feared. the voting results showed that several longstanding divisions in the electorate endured and even widened. mr. trump was winning male voters by 12 points, the largest margin for any nominee dating at least to the 2000 election. the first woman to lead a major party, mrs. clinton was winning female voters on tuesday by 12 percentage points, the largest margin in recent elections, except for mr. obama<u+2019>s 13-point edge in 2008. generational divisions also appeared. voters under age 45 mostly backed mrs. clinton, while many over age 45 backed mr. trump. william frey, a demographer at the brookings institution, noted that the cohort of younger voters is more racially diverse than are older voters. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s a cultural-generational gap,<u+2019><u+2019> he said. <u+201c>there<u+2019>s a different view of the country among the white, older age group than among the more diverse, younger age group.<u+201d> divisions in the nation<u+2019>s voter pool extended to their attitudes about government, society and in their outlook on the future. a plurality of clinton voters said life for the next generation of americans would get better, while a plurality of trump voters said it would get worse. write to aaron zitner at aaron.zitner@dowjones.com
rural vote fuels trump; clinton loses urban grip    - wsj
aaron zitner paul overberg