The media story in the days following the 2016 election was that a huge defection of angry, white, blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt from their traditional Democratic voting patterns put Donald J. Trump in the White House in a grand slap at the nation’s “liberal” elite. But is that the real story?

While he didn’t actually win the popular vote, Trump did carry the majority (58 percent) of white voters. Furthermore, he won the key “battleground” states in the Rust Belt that are the basis of the media story, which raises serious questions. Who were these white voters? Was this the major shift that sent Trump to victory?

Exit polls taken during the primaries, when the Trump revolt began, showed that the whole election process was skewed toward the better-off sections of US society, and that Trump did better among them than Clinton. Looking at those voters in the general election from the 26 percent of US households earning more than $100,000, who are unlikely to be working class these days, we see that Clinton got 34 percent of her vote, and Trump a slightly larger 35 percent of his, from these well-to-do voters.