Like Romney in 2012, GOP candidate Donald Trump wins in Southold Town
The wave of voters that President-elect Donald Trump rode into office this Election Day extended into Southold Town, where Mr. Trump won by slightly more than the same margin as Mitt Romney did in the 2012 election, according to preliminary election results.
Most notably, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton saw a collapse among voters that had favored President Barack Obama in 2012 and overall turnout dropped by about 1,300 votes.
Mr. Trump won 53 percent of the vote across Southold Town with 5,743, beating out Ms. Clinton’s total of 4,704 votes, roughly 44 percent of the vote, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections. The remaining 3 percent of the vote was split between third-party candidates, according to the data.
Mr. Trump’s performance was replicated elsewhere in Suffolk County, where Mr. Trump won 52 percent of the vote. Mr. Trump is the first Republican candidate to win a majority of Suffolk voters since George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Mr. Trump’s margin of victory was much larger in Riverhead Town, which had previously been lost by Mr. Obama by just 721 votes.
Part of the key to Mr. Trump’s victory in Riverhead Town appears to have been a collapse of support for the Democratic nominee, according to the data. Ms. Clinton underperformed Mr. Obama’s polling numbers and drew in 918 fewer votes.
Mr. Trump also turned out more voters to his side than Mr. Romney, according to the data. He pulled in 355 more votes across the town than the 2012 nominee.
Third-party voting also saw a marked increase from the year before, with more than double as many people voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein than in 2012. However, the total third-party vote only made up 349 votes, not nearly enough to overcome Ms. Clinton’s deficit.
The third-party vote was nearly identical to that of 2012, according to the results.
In Southold, Mr. Trump’s strongest areas were in sections of Mattituck that previously voted for the 2012 Republican candidate, according to the results. However, Mr. Trump didn’t win any districts that Mr. Obama won four years ago. Instead, the results appear to show he ran up the margins in the areas that already favored Republican candidates.
Of the 19 election districts in town, Mr. Trump carried all but five. Ms. Clinton scored victories in election districts around Greenport Village, as well as Orient and Fischers Island.
