People underestimate how vast America is. There are millions and millions of people living in small communities miles away (literally and figuratively) from the New Yorks, Chicagos, LAs etc. These are folks who have virtually no local law enforcement, a single school which runs with no day to day involvement with authority other than edicts passed down from on high, hospitals miles and miles away, volunteer local fire services etc etc. As a general rule, these communities will forever vote for the "smaller government" option, because government intervention is essentially meaningless - it's only noticed when the long arm of authority 'interferes' in a negative sense (that their taxes pay for). It's no wonder the Libertarian "leave us the fuck alone" mindset is so prevalent.
These people aren't stupid en masse, or a homogeneous block defined by racism and misogyny. There will no doubt be elements of that within communities (as there are in ALL communities), but it's not millions of people driven by hate and enthusiastic about finally getting hateful representation; they'll have simply weighed up the "low tax/low intervention, American jobs for Americans" promises of the republicans vs the "additional funding for community outreach programmes in the underprivileged inner city areas of Detroit" perception of the Democrats, and voted on the "what matters more to me?" principle. Which in many cases means an X next to Trump's name.
