Russ Zimmer, and Andrew Ford

Asbury Park Press

Check out the interactive map below to see how your town voted in last week's presidential election compared to 2012's race

President-elect Donald Trump did not win New Jersey, but he did outdo Mitt Romney's performance from four years ago

Along the Shore, Trump was especially strong in lower- and middle-income, mostly white communities

Was this just Trump or a shift in the identities of the two major political parties?

Donald Trump, who claimed a surprise electoral college victory in last week's presidential election, flipped nine towns in Monmouth and Ocean counties from blue to red, all of them middle- or lower-income communities, according to an Asbury Park Press analysis.

The faithfully Republican counties of Monmouth and Ocean both produced larger margins of victory for Trump than they did for Mitt Romney, the GOP's 2012 presidential candidate, but it was in places like Keansburg and South Toms River where his performance was particularly stunning.

Click on the interactive map below for more detail. Mobile users click here.

On Election Day, Republican voters nationwide ultimately coalesced around Trump — a candidate whose prospects for victory were almost universally viewed with skepticism when he entered the race last year.

The difference in the race, however, were white blue-collar voters — traditionally Democratic voters — who pushed the real estate mogul to an upset win over Hillary Clinton.

What does a Trump win mean for Chris Christie's future in New Jersey? Watch the video above to find out.

The question before political observers now is whether these voters will side with Republicans going forward or whether their support for Trump, who ran as an anti-establishment politician, was an anomaly driven by the uniqueness of Trump.

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“It’s absolutely not the Republican platform," said Patrick Murray, a pollster for Monmouth University. "This is Donald Trump and basically the message he was sending to the white working class who feel that the system has passed them by.”

"People are looking for a change," George Gilmore, Ocean County Republican chairman, SAID last week. "They're frustrated that things haven’t gotten better over the last four years. I'm not going to say it's gotten worse, but it hasn’t gotten better. Donald Trump represents that change."

Joe Cocuzza, of Keansburg, was a laborer — he declined to say for what company — until his body stopped cooperating and forced him into early retirement. He was out of work for months during the national recession and now lives off Social Security disability.

Cocuzza, 61, said he felt like he was "the high school diploma, middle-class guy that nobody ever listens to" — except for Donald Trump.

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He grew up identifying with the party of JFK but now feels like the Republican Party, and especially Trump, better represent his ideals — stricter rules on immigration, less emphasis on political correctness, military strength and supporting police officers.

“I was always for Democrats. They’re supposed to be for the little people, the poor people, the middle-class people," he said. "I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like anybody cares anymore.”

This sentiment isn't new, Murray said, and the same white, blue-collar revolt against the Democrats could have materialized in 2012.

“The reason why Barack Obama was able to carry many of the same towns despite the fact that many felt he wasn’t doing enough for them was that Mitt Romney was viewed as even more of an elitist,” he said.

Some more findings from the data from Monmouth and Ocean counties:

Shore voters seemed to be more energized to vote than in 2012. Unofficial results show an increase in voter turnout in 75 out of 86 towns. Trump was most successful where voting surged — the Republican won all but one of the 15 towns with the largest jumps in voter participation from 2012.

In the seven Monmouth boroughs that voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump this year, the median household income was below what is typical for the county ($85,600), according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Lakehurst and South Toms River, the two municipalities that flipped for Trump in this election, were right around the benchmark earnings threshold for Ocean County ($61,800).

There's always an exception: Neptune City, with a typical household income of $64,000 and a population that is almost an equal split between white and racial/ethnic minorities, ended up in Trump's column — he beat Clinton 49 percent to 47 percent. Obama won there by 13 percentage points in 2012.

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com