He got the most Electoral Votes because the Upper Midwest: Michigan and Wisconsin - and half of Pennsylvania - switched sides for the first time in a long, long time.

They switched sides because their economies have been ruined for decades by free trade, and the "worker's party" - the Democrats - had power for eight years and didn't do a damned thing about it.

But that has been true of BOTH parties since Reagan. What was different this time is that, for the first time since Ross Perot, a politician ran on an explicitly economic nationalist/protectionist platform.

And so the states worst ravaged by free trade voted for him. That's why Trump won.

It was not because of the gay issue: the Solid South mostly voted Republican, as usual. Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are socially liberal places: they tolerate gays in those places. They don't care. If their economies were working again, they'd have voted for Clinton.

Trump is President because of Michiganders like me, who have been economic nationalists for 40 years, screaming since the days of Reagan at anybody who would listen that "free" trade was gutting American industry. We were right, but nobody listened except Perot, and both parties trashed him.

Trump campaigned directly to us, so Michigan voted for him, as did Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And that is where the Electoral Vote margin came from that gave him the election. It was not some other shift, on some other issue.

Trump is President because he promised to raise tariff and other protectionist barriers against Chinese goods and put American industry back on the map again, which means giving Michiganders and Wisconsinites and Pennsylvanians (and Ohioans and Indianans) their jobs back. That's why.

If he wants to win re-election, THAT is what he has to deliver. He can irritate people here and there about this and that: the Solid South isn't going to go Democrat. California and New York and Illinois are not going to go Republican (Minnesota might.)

But Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania voted for Trump because Trump alone promised economic protectionism against free trade, to bring American manufacturing jobs back. If Trump delivers that, he will be re-elected, and the Republicans will gain all sorts of seats.

If he doesn't do that - if he is unable to force the unwilling Republicans to protect American jobs - he will lose Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and the Democrats will come roaring back, with all of the rest of the crap they bring.

Now, the traditional Republicans actually oppose protectionism. They are going to have to compromise on this aspect of their traditional platform and give Trump, and Michigan, the protectionism we want. Get the Midwestern jobs back, and you restore the economy and the Republican majority.

THAT is the key.

Will Republicans who are opposed to protectionism, which is most of them, understand that the price of holding power and getting what they want on regulation and taxes and immigration and everything else, ultimately depends on holding those Upper Midwest States, and that THEY can only be held by giving them the protectionism they have been screaming for since 1980?

We'll see.

I think Trump is going to bowl over the opposition and get what he wants, and that will mean re-election, and a complete change of things.