President Barack Obama admitted that some of the people who had voted for him voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, rather than his chosen successor Hillary Clinton.
“We know that there are a substantial number of voters out there who not only voted for me twice, but currently support me, who also voted for Donald Trump,” he acknowledged in an interview with National Public Radio.
Obama also acknowledged that Trump had “scrambled” the political map, creating structural problems for the Democrats.
He admitted that some of his administration’s decisions on social issues like gun control and transgender bathrooms might have angered voters in swing states:
They may know less about the work that my administration did on trying to promote collective bargaining or overtime rules. But they know a lot about the controversy around transgender bathrooms because it’s more controversial; it attracts more attention.
I think that on something like the Affordable Care Act, you have people who are benefiting right now from Obamacare who either don’t know it’s Obamacare or consider that as a given and then end up voting on Second Amendment rights.
Obama said Democrats failed in the recent election, as they were lacking the basic infrastructure to organize in swing states.
“[Y]ou’ve got a situation where there’re not only entire states, but also big chunks of states where, if we’re not showing up, if we’re not in there making an argument, then we’re going to lose,” he said. “And we can lose badly, and that’s what happened in this election.”