People are talking as though this election was such a big defeat for the Democrats that they are totally destroyed.  Given all the cards stacked against him, there is no doubt that Trump pulled off an amazing feat, but it was still a squeaker.  How's that?  Trump won 306 electoral votes to 232, a margin of 74.

To show how close it was, I have prepared the following table of states Trump won narrowly:

To win, Hillary needed 38 more electoral votes than she got.  Just 113,840 more votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would have given her the presidency.  There were about 13.6 million votes cast in these three states.  That number is less than one percent of the 13.6 million votes cast.  Less than half a million votes could have flipped all six of these states, giving Hillary 333 electoral votes to Trump's 205.

The table also shows that she had many ways to win with just a few more votes.  For example, Florida plus any one of the other states in the table above would have given her the presidency.

Yes, it was a big win, but we dodged a bullet.  The challenge for Trump and the Republicans is to do such a good job that whoever the Democrats put up four years from now will be buried in a landslide.  Go for it!