Reality Check: Who voted for Donald Trump?

Sorry, we can’t display this part of the story on this lightweight mobile page.
View the full version of the page to see all the content.

Donald Trump has beaten Hillary Clinton in the race to be president of the United States.

Much of the narrative ahead of the election had been that Mr Trump was supported by angry, white men. To get an insight into which groups actually voted for him, you can look at the exit poll conducted across the country by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, a consortium of ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News.

It is very difficult to get a genuinely representative sample of how more than 120 million people have voted. It is a big survey - of almost 25,000 voters - and they are the best figures available, but they should be used with caution.

It throws up some odd results, such as that 10% of people who support the idea of a wall along the Mexican border nonetheless voted for Mrs Clinton, while 5% of people who thought the next president should continue the policies of Barack Obama voted for Mr Trump.

Bear in mind that the proportions are unlikely to add up to 100%, because not everybody answered all the questions and there were other candidates standing in the election, who received about 5% of the votes.

The poll suggests that 53% of men voted for Mr Trump, with 41% voting for Mrs Clinton - those proportions are almost exactly reversed for women.

Among white voters (who made up 70% of voters), Mr Trump won 58% to Mrs Clinton's 37%, while the Democratic candidate won the support of a huge majority of black voters - 88% to Mr Trump's 8% - and Hispanic voters - 65% to his 29%.

Looking specifically at white women, they favoured Mr Trump, with 53% supporting him compared with 43% for Mrs Clinton.

It has been widely reported that the 29% of Hispanic voters who supported Mr Trump was greater than the 27% who voted for the Republican candidate Mitt Romney in 2012, despite Mr Trump's comments about Mexicans and plans to build a wall on the US's southern border.

Mrs Clinton had the majority of voters on lower incomes, with 52% of those on incomes below $50,000 (£40,000) a year supporting her compared with 41% voting for her opponent. Among those earning more than $50,000, it was 49% to Mr Trump compared with 47% to Mrs Clinton.

Mrs Clinton's support among those on incomes below $30,000 was well down on President Obama's in 2012. He had 63% support from that group compared with 35% voting for Mitt Romney, while Mrs Clinton had 53% support to Mr Trump's 41%.

There was also a big swing for voters without a high school diploma, with Mr Trump leading 51% to Mrs Clinton's 45%. Four years ago, President Obama had 64% support from this group compared with Mitt Romney's 35%.

Mr Trump won the rural vote by 62% to 34% and the suburban vote by 50% to 45%, while Mrs Clinton won the urban vote by 59% to 35%.

And he had a clear majority among those aged 45 and over, while Mrs Clinton was more popular with younger voters.

There were stories before the election of Republicans planning to vote for Mrs Clinton because they did not like their own candidate, but the exit poll actually suggested that 7% of people who identified themselves as Republicans had voted for Mrs Clinton, while 9% of those who identified as Democrats had voted for Mr Trump.

Of people who gave their opinion of the candidate they voted for, 41% strongly favoured them, 32% had reservations and 25% said they disliked the opponents.

Also among the slightly odd findings of the poll, 18% of respondents who felt that Mr Trump was not qualified to be president nonetheless voted for him, as did 20% of those who felt he did not have the necessary temperament.

And 2% of respondents who said they would feel scared if Mr Trump won, still voted for him, compared with 1% who voted for Mrs Clinton, despite saying they would be scared if she won.