Not just in the US

How did this happen? What went “wrong”? In the campaign, Clinton was consistently rated ahead of Trump — at once even by a margin of 12 percent — and with an Election Day poll of polls giving her 46 percent to his 42 percent. Online betting odds highly favoured Clinton, at 0.2-to-1, with Trump at 4-to-1.

Yet pollsters and bookmakers proved to be spectacularly wrong.

Why? The data was seemingly echoed by events at ground level.

Despite beating 16 rivals in the Republican primaries, Trump looked unelectable and too mired to baggage from his serial insults to key demographic groups, namely women, Muslims and Mexicans.

Trepidation was also felt by Caribbean nationals in the US because of his ominous pronouncements on immigration.

Yet Trump tapped into the hidden frustration of the white working class yearning for a return of heavy industry from overseas back to rust-belt towns to fulfil his vow to “Make America Great Again”. He grabbed job-hungry “Reagan Democrats” in northeast states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan.

At Tuesday’s count, the Trump phenomenon resonated worldwide as big states went his way including the bellwether States of Ohio and Florida, the sudden shift causing a temporary drop in stock markets worldwide.

The election results will undergo keen analysis for a long time coming.

How did a man with no prior political experience beat his rival (Clinton), seen onstage with two past Presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? How did a nominee win, despite his rejection by most of the hierarchy of his own party including two former Presidents, George Bush and George W Bush? How did a seemingly racist Trump win over an electorate that had twice before voted an African-American as President (Obama)? How did Trump get out the vote on Election Day without a full party machinery, with electors instead motivated by his personal charisma at three rallies a day in the days ahead of Election Day? In the end, Trump won by connecting with voters tired of the “same old, same old” of Washington DC politics, vowing an end to its business-as-usual mood. He roped in blue-collar workers who felt past neglect by the Democrats, in contrast to his promise of new jobs.

While his persona is rough around the edges, he has excused his gaffes as “showbiz stuff ”, with voters apparently preferring his political clean slate to the emailgate and pay-to-play scandals of former Secretary of State Clinton.

Pollsters and news stations must assess why they failed to predict Trump’s win.

One commentator on CNN (Cable News Network) belatedly on election night revealed the phenomenon of the “lean-in” voter, who does not talk to opinion pollsters but will lean in to tell you quietly that he/she is voting Trump. If so, this could echo the failure of pollsters to predict the Brexit vote, months ago, when a right-wing groundswell of voters went against media predictions and escaped detection.

Analysis of the Trump win must find out why voters were unwilling to tell pollsters their support for Trump. Was it because his public image was so tainted in the media that voters feared that if they expressed support for him they too would be dubbed racist, sexist and religiously bigoted? An analysis of the Trump win may in future be used to explain current political trends in other areas of the world.