SEAN TRENDE AND DAVID BLYLER: How Trump Won — Conclusions. “The general trend here, though, is that most of the land area is red. Land area doesn’t vote, but rural and small-town America casts tens of millions of votes. Shifts of this magnitude add up. The one big exception is California, which has shifted almost uniformly toward Democrats. But this is inefficient; California was already quite blue by 1996; all of these votes are ‘wasted.’ On the other hand, the dark red areas – West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana – are all places where Democrats performed well in 1996, but no longer do.”