An emotional Hillary Clinton wishes Donald Trump success, vows assistance

Hillary Clinton vowed on Wednesday to work with American President-elect Donald Trump, and urged fellow Democrats to allow him the chance to lead the deeply divided country.

“Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country,” the defeated candidate told supporters, holding back tears in her first public remarks since the Republican’s upset victory.

“I hope that he will be a successful President for all Americans.”

“We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought,” she said. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

Ms Clinton’s bid to become America’s first female President was crushed Wednesday after one of the bitterest presidential campaigns in memory.

“This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for and I’m sorry that we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country,” she said.

“This is painful, and it will be for a long time, but I want you to remember this: our campaign was never about one person or even one election.”

She said that the constitutional democracy “enshrines the peaceful transfer of power, and we don’t just respect that, we cherish it.”

“It enshrines other things too,” she said.

“The rule of law, the principle that we are all equal in rights and dignity, freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them,” she said in what appeared to be a gentle jab at Mr Trump, who called for a ban on Muslims during the campaign, and during one presidential debate appeared to threaten Clinton herself with jail if he was President.

Before polls closed, the Clinton campaign had been confident of victory. Many women supporting her said they could already hear the sound of glass shattering. They had already iced champagne and inflated pink “It’s a Girl” balloons.

In the end, however, she lost even some states thought to be safely in her column, like Wisconsin, and trailed in others, like Pennsylvania and Michigan. And the only woman to ever come close to the Oval Office was defeated.

The US media, the same one which got the nation’s mood completely wrong and is now, according to some polls, the most loathed national institution in American civic life, is attributing Ms Clinton’s defeat to her failure to woo African-American, Latino, Asian and younger voters.

“African-American, Latino and younger voters failed to show up at the polls in sufficient numbers on Tuesday to propel Clinton into the White House,” CNN reported.

While Ms Clinton won the key demographic groups her campaign targeted, she underperformed President Barack Obama across the board, even among women.

Men overwhelmingly supported Mr Trump, 46 per cent to 38 per cent for Ms Clinton. And women, supposedly Ms Clinton’s most ardent base voters, supported her by just 54 per cent compared to Mr Trump’s 42 per cent. Mr Obama won 55 per cent of the women’s vote in 2012.

A slightly larger share of black and Latino voters cast ballots for Mr Trump than supported Mitt Romney in 2012, despite Mr Trump’s disparaging remarks on African-Americans, Mexicans and undocumented immigrants, it said.

Some 88 per cent of African-American voters supported Ms Clinton, versus 8 per cent for Republican Trump, as of early Wednesday morning. While that’s a large margin, Mr Obama locked up 93 per cent of the black vote to Romney’s 7 per cent.

Some 12 per cent of the electorate was African-American this year, compared to 13 per cent four years ago. That’s a key drop, especially when paired with a smaller-than-expected growth in Latino votes, the report said.

Ms Clinton’s support among Latinos was even more tenuous, despite Mr Trump pledging to build a wall on the Mexican border, accusing undocumented immigrants of being criminal aliens and promising to deport them.

Only 65 per cent of Latinos backed her, while 29 per cent cast their votes for Mr Trump. In 2012, Mr Obama won 71 per cent of the Hispanic vote.

Asian voters, which made up a tiny 4 per cent of the electorate, were also less supportive of Ms Clinton than of Mr Obama. Some 65 per cent of Asian voters cast ballots for her, as opposed to 73 per cent for Mr Obama in 2012.

Beyond the Obama coalition, Ms Clinton was also not as popular with white voters as Mr Obama was. She won only 37 per cent of the white vote, compared to Mr Obama’s 39 per cent. Mr Trump won 58 per cent.

Ms Clinton also failed to capture as many young voters, who flocked to her rival Bernie Sanders in the primary and to Mr Obama four years ago.

She won 55 per cent of voters age 18 to 29, compared to 37 per cent who cast ballots for Mr Trump. Mr Obama had secured 60 per cent of these young voters.

In the end it all came down to Hillary Clinton, the quintessential Democratic machine candidate, a corrupt member of the ruling elite whom many people never warmed to, and who now will have to face the wreckage of her campaign, her party, and her personal scandals.