The Real Reason Trump Won: Part 3 of 4 Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443801/real-reason-trump-won-democratic-turnout-decline
Once again, as in every election since 1980, the winner of the popular vote got substantially fewer votes than the number of eligible voters who didn’t show up at all. 2016 set a new record: More than 95 million eligible voters did not cast a presidential ballot, producing the widest spread between the nonvoters and the winner of the popular vote since 2000:
The number of people tuning out of the process spiked for the second election cycle in a row, while the third-party vote increased and the number of voters for the major parties stayed flat (this time, unlike 2012, without a multi-state natural disaster ten days before the election).
.. Trump got the votes of 27.2 percent of all eligible voters, down from 27.4 percent for Romney, which was down from 28.1 percent for McCain, which was down from 30.5 percent for Bush in 2004.