Trump's confrontational relationship with the largest cities extends his central political strategy of focusing almost entirely on energizing his political base even at the expense of heightening resistance from the voters outside of it. Obama in 2012 carried the 100 largest counties by a combined 11.6 million votes. That was itself a big increase from Al Gore's margin of 6.8 million votes over Bush in the 100 largest counties as of 2000. But in 2016, Clinton won the 100 largest counties by nearly 14.7 million votes, over a quarter more than Obama did. In Florida, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum won Florida's Pinellas County (St. Petersburg), the fourth largest county that Trump won.

Source: CNN April 16, 2019 05:15 UTC