LeDuff: How Trump won the Oval Office, and Michigan's big losers

President-elect Donald Trump

While the manicured media types try to acquaint themselves with an America they don't understand, here are some other stories they might consider.

Minorities may have delivered the winning margin to Donald Trump:

  • Latinos, 29 percent.
  • Asians, 29 percent.
  • Other non-whites, 37 percent.

Even with Trump’s bigoted bluster, he appealed to more than "working class" whites. Economic insecurity is the big issue in America. There was little talk about jobs from Hillary Clinton.

Only eight percent of blacks went for Trump (still two points better than Mitt Romney). As it stands, the Republicans routinely write them off as unwinnable and Democrats toss crumbs and take them for granted.

Imagine if someone speaks to Black America as part of America, a completely new coalition arises.

It's the economy, stupid. The color here is Green.

On the Michigan front there were three big losers:

1. The newspapers had problems keeping editorial page moralizing from leaking onto its news pages. In the end, voters ignored their clarion for Clinton as well as a region-wide transportation tax. In an era of financial anxiety, less is more.

And let the record show the Free Press called Michigan for Clinton sometime after 8 p.m. on Election Day.

2. City Clerk Janice Winfrey

We knew the Hawaii vote here by midnight, but not our own. With the world’s eyes on Michigan, the Great Lakes State couldn’t be called until Wednesday because once again Detroit (and Genesee County) had arithmetic problems. Remember Mike Duggan’s Detroit mayoral write-in debacle, when it was discovered at least a dozen registered voters were over the age of 110? Want to live forever? Register to vote in Detroit. You may die, however, waiting for your vote to get counted.

3. The biggest political loser in Michigan, hands down, is Mayor Duggan. The emperor wears no clothes. At least not coat tails. Mike’s machine was supposed to deliver Michigan for Hillary. As it stands, fewer Detroiters voted in 2016 than they did in 2012 when President Obama last ran.

Worse for Mike: he is neck deep in a federal corruption probe, and his escape hatch to Hillary’s Washington has been welded shut. A grand jury may be convened before Christmas in connection with the city’s demolition program funded with federal Treasury dollars. Good luck sir. And may God save the United States of America.