Trump's win in 2016

[moose65]

How many times have we heard that "Trump won in 2016 due to 77,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin." We have heard that so often that we take it as the gospel truth. However, it's not entirely true, IMO. Let's dig in:

Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes.
Trump won Wisconsin by 22,748 votes
Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,284 votes

In those three states, he won by 77,736 votes. I've seen it stated as 77,000 or 78,000 or 80,000. However, to make a statement like that, it implies that he would have lost without all THREE states. Trump got 306 Electoral votes, but only 270 are needed to win. Therefore, even if he had lost Pennsylvania (20 votes) and Michigan (16 votes), he still would have had 270 votes. He didn't need to win those two states to get to 270 Electoral votes.

Therefore, it was ONLY Wisconsin that put him over the top. We should say that Trump won because of 23,000 votes in Wisconsin.

Please tell me if there's a flaw in the above statement!

[Doodley]

1. Trump called it "a massive landslide victory," even though it was as close as you say, and he

was three million votes behind and won two EC votes less than Joe Biden.

[unblock]

2. But Wisconsin would have mattered only if he lost elsewhere, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania

If Wisconsin gone the other way and everything else was the same, Donnie would still have won. We needed to win all three.

It's only after you flip Michigan and Pennsylvania that you can then say Wisconsin is all we needed. Any way you cut it, we needed 77-78k votes in the right places.

[moose65]

3. I'm saying that Michigan and Pennsylvania were icing on the cake

He didn't need those two to win.

I see your point, though. If a team wins a basketball game by 40 points, they will say they won by 40, even though they only needed one point more than their opponent to win. Trump "won" by whatever number above 270 he had, which included the other two states.

[unblock]

4. ok, but then, any two of the 3 states could be considered "icing on the cake"

if you're trying to say how many extra votes hillary needed to win, then hillary needed all 3 states, so, 77-78k votes in the right places.

you could say that all he needed was wisconsin, while michgan and pennsylvania were unnecessary.
or you could say that all he needed was michigan, while wisconsin and pennsylvania were unnecessary.

depending on the order in which you count the states, you could make most any of them be the one that "put him over".

even within wisconsin, he you could say that 22,747 of those votes were "icing on the cake" because he only needed to win by one vote....