Washington: Hillary Clinton just couldn't woo African-American, Latino, Asian and younger voters and that contributed a large part of her undoing in her race to the White House against Donald Trump, US media said on Wednesday.
"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.
Before polls closed the Clinton campaign had been confident of victory. In the end, however, she lost even some states thought to be safely in her column, like Wisconsin.
She trailed in others, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, it noted. While Clinton, 69, won the key demographic groups her campaign targeted, she under performed President Barack Obama across the board, even among women, the network said in a report based on exit poll data.
A slightly larger share of black and Latino voters cast ballots for Trump than supported Mitt Romney in 2012, despite Trump's disparaging remarks on African-Americans, Mexicans and undocumented immigrants, it said.
President Obama, who captured the presidency with the help of the African-American and Latino communities, issued several personal pleas to black voters to back the Democratic Party nominee in recent weeks.
But not enough African-Americans, along with Latinos, heeded the first black American president's call. Some 88 per cent of African-American voters supported Clinton, versus 8 per cent for Republican Trump, as of early Wednesday morning.
While that's a large margin, it's not as big as Obama's victory over Mitt Romney in 2012. 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.
This lowered turnout happened even after Trump repeatedly made sweeping comments about how black communities were in the worst shape ever. Referring multiple times to "inner cities," Trump said black people live in poverty, have no jobs and get shot walking down the street. "What do you have to lose?" he asked.
Asian voters, which made up a tiny 4 per cent of the electorate, were also less supportive of Clinton than of Obama. Some 65 per cent of Asian voters cast ballots for her, as opposed to 73 per cent for Obama in 2012.
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