2016 Election Recap
November 29, 2016
On Nov. 8 the votes were tallied and the new President elect of the United States was chosen. Republican candidate Donald Trump won the electoral college with 290 votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 232. Popular vote wise however, Trump did have less at 60,530,867 to Clinton’s 61,329,657, according to cnn.com.
The Republican party also won majority in the House and the Senate, elections for which were also held on Nov. 8. In the Senate, they hold a smaller majority of 51 to 48, however in the House it is a more significant gap with the Republicans winning 238 to 193. Gaps like this are not unusual, the current senate has 54 Republicans to 45 Democrats.
Before the election, Trump released his First 100 Day Action Plan, which details many of the plans he outlined in his campaign. Because the President does not have ultimate power, most things will require many layers of approval or must be started in the Congress. Some of his ideas most likely will not happen, and you can read the full fact checked plan from NPR here: www.npr.org
As far as Texas goes, all 38 electoral college votes went towards Trump’s win. Elections were also held in House 23 (which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso) for their House Representative. Republican William Hurd beat Pete Gallego by about 3,000 votes, according to www.cnn.com.
In LISD, an election was held for three Board Trustee positions. According to www.wilco.org, place three was won by Pam Waggoner who is most concerned with the issues of the massive growth of LISD and of the current low budget the district faces, according to pamwaggoner.com. Waggoner said that she hopes to see parents and the community become more involved in schools. Position four was won by Grace Barber Jordan who believes in student excellence and is committed to improving LISD according to her website: barberjordan.com. The final position, place five was won by Jim MacKay, while Waggoner and Jordan were running for reelection after having served for over a decade, MacKay is new to the board and beat out Russell Bundy who had previously held the position. According to The Community Impact, his platform stems from leadership and applying the human relations training he received while serving in the military in order to improve our schools.