Democrats need to rebuild the political “blue wall” of traditionally Democratic upper Midwest and Great Lakes states that Republican Donald Trump captured with an appeal to white, working-class voters.

Hillary Clinton’s failure to hold key blocs of these voters helped seal Trump’s stunning electoral victory and leaves Democrats with a gaping, perhaps long-term, hole in the party’s national battle front.

Trump carried Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Democratic nominees had won the previous six presidential elections. Trump also won Wisconsin, carried by Democrats in seven straight tries, and Iowa, carried just once by a Republican over the same period.

In each, Trump vastly outperformed 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney in rural areas, while also seizing more typically Democratic-voting small cities and working-class suburbs.

(AP)