Friends and colleagues -

In what some are billing as the biggest upset in American political history, Donald Trump defied pundits and pollsters and won a convincing victory Tuesday over Secretary Hillary Clinton. White working-class voters, once the lynchpin of the Democratic Party, swung heavily in favor of Trump and were the deciding factor in an election that saw the lowest voter turnout since 2000. The ground shift started early in the evening with Trump capturing Ohio and Florida. However, the real surprise is that the Democrats’ northern firewall crumbled altogether. Trump swung through the Rust Belt, winning Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. As of this writing, he remains ahead in Michigan, which is still too close to call. This would be the first time since 1984 that the Republican candidate for president has won all three of those states.