Alert – How Trump gained support in county where ‘migrants were eating pets’… and flipped the blue collar vote

As Donald Trump shifts his focus to a second term in the White House, the extraordinary statistics from his 2024 election victory are still emerging.

On the way to being president-elect, he won all of seven of the swing states that were supposed to be coin-flips.

Black and Hispanic voters turned out in their droves to back Trump and the Republican nominee saw an increase in support in 49 out of the 50 states. 

The Democrat civil war over who was to blame for the defeat will continue long into when the party starts considering their 2028 presidential nominees.

But as the dust settles, DailyMail.com has broken down two sets of statistics that show just how dominant Trump’s victory was – even in places where he seemed certain to lose support. 

Did ‘migrants eating pets’ claims hurt Trump in county at the center of allegations?

It was a comment during his debate with Kamala Harris that some feared could damage his election chances.

But it turns out Trump’s allegation that Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs didn’t hurt him at the ballot box – especially in the county where he claimed it was happening.

DailyMail.com has crunched the numbers to reveal the president-elect actually gained support in Clark County, where the town of Springfield resides. 

The normally quiet community has seen an influx of migrants in the last year and was rocked by the animal-eating claims from Republicans – that made it all the way to the top of the ticket. 

In the run-up to the Presidential election, Trump sparked fury by claiming Haitian immigrants living in Springfield were stealing dogs and cats for food. 

His incendiary comments left the city on edge, with locals warning bullets would fly because of tensions stoked by the anti-immigrant rhetoric sweeping social media.

In his landslide victory, Trump stormed home to a 30-point lead over Kamala Harris in Clark County, home to around 130,000 people and the town of Springfield.

He clinched 64.2 percent of the votes, up from 60.8 percent in his 2020 showdown with Joe Biden.

The 3.5 point swing only manifested itself as an additional 600 votes.

But Democrats lost 2,500 voters in Clark County in a trend mirrored nationwide that catapulted Trump to victory.

In a DailyMail.com poll conducted with J.L. Partners before the election, most voters considered Trump's comments on migrants to be the biggest blunder of his campaign.

Donald Trump said during the debate with Kamala Harris in September: 'In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats'

The comments in the run-up to the presidential election sparked fury in Springfield, Ohio

His incendiary comments left the city (pictured heading to the polls) on edge, with locals warning bullets would fly because of tensions stoked by the anti-immigrant rhetoric sweeping social media

Out of 1,000 voters were asked about the Republican nominee's biggest mistake, they pointed to the moment in the September debate where he said: 'In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. 

'They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.'

Harris started laughing in response and it sparked a furious response from the White House and Democrats calling it 'dangerous rhetoric'.

While the pet-eating claims turned out to be unfounded, Springfield officials did admit they were struggling with the influx of Haitian migrants.

Health officials on the ground said baseless and sensational rumors about immigrants have obscured the very real strain hospitals and clinics have felt after 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian immigrants arrived in the town over the past five years - boosting its population by 25 percent over the past three years.

It became a flash point for the debate on immigration which became a focal point of Trump's campaign.  

How Trump dominated the 'blue collar battle' with Kamala  

Trump dominated the 'blue collar battle', according to analysis laying bare his extraordinary victory. 

In what has been widely branded the biggest political comeback in history, Trump convinced millions of reliably-Democrat groups to switch allegiance.

Trump flipped 11 counties across the seven swing states during his remarkable run, which saw America swept by a 'red tsunami'.

Over half were among the poorest in their state. 

Georgia's Jefferson County, where the median household income is $30,000 below the state average, saw the biggest lurch to the right, converting a seven percent GOP deficit in 2020 to a 1.4 percent majority this time around. 

All three of the counties that Trump gained in North Carolina also fell way under the average income mark. They were Pasquotank, Anson and Nash Counties.

Anson had the fourth lowest income growth among the 90 counties nationwide that flipped Republican, ticking up just $2,200 between 2020 and 2022, according to the Census.

Arizona's Maricopa and Pennsylvania's Erie proved pre-election pollsters correct in helping Trump to send shockwaves around the world.

Erie is in the bottom half of average income across the state, with an estimated one in seven people living in poverty.

Maricopa, meanwhile, enjoys the second-highest median household income of the swing state flipped counties with $80,675, marginally behind Washoe County, Nevada ($81,531).

Of all the counties nationwide that flipped, New York's Nassau County registered the biggest gain in average income between 2020 and 2022 — roughly $17,673.

There, Trump converted a 9.5 percent win for Joe Biden to a 4.9 percent victory in 2024 — despite the area being the richest district in the state.

Just one county regressed between 2020 and 2022 in terms of median income per household — Issaquena, Mississippi which is known as the least-populated county east of the Mississippi river in the whole country. 

Here, median income per household fell $10,433 to $17,900.

Richer Democrats, in households who earn over $100,000 a year, came out stronger for Harris than Biden in 2020.

But among households making below that, which account for around 60 percent of voters, the GOP won a double digit gain of 12 points.  

The exit poll as ballots closed on November 5 showed just how important dollars and cents in pockets are to American voters. 

Over a third of voters nationally (35 per cent) rated the 'state of democracy' as the most important factor to their voting decision and 81 percent of these voters sided with Harris. 

However the second most-important issue to voters was the economy and among this group, Trump garnered 79 percent of the vote.