While Democrats still held a sizable lead in Suffolk, contributing to the state overall going blue for the third presidential election in a row, support for both major parties slipped in Suffolk this year with a relatively strong third-party vote.

Republican candidate Donald Trump won enough electoral votes in Tuesday’s election to become the president-elect, but not with the help of Virginia. More votes were cast for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the commonwealth, but Democrats still are assessing what changed.

“I think we’re kind of in line with the rest of the nation,” said Leslie Rinaldi, chair of the Suffolk Democratic Committee. “It just seems like this was a general referendum nationwide.”

Stephen Trent, the chair of the Suffolk Republican Party, said Trump got so much support because “I think the American people are upset at the way the country’s being run. It just seems like nothing’s getting done.”

In 2012, President Barack Obama gathered 57 percent of the Suffolk vote on his way to re-election. His opponent, Republican nominee Mitt Romney, got 41.8 percent of the Suffolk vote.

This year, however, support for both parties slipped with stronger third-party performance. Clinton garnered 54.6 percent of the Suffolk vote, compared to 40.85 percent for Trump.

This year, third-party candidates and write-in votes got about 4.5 percent of the Suffolk vote. They barely topped 1 percent in 2012.

Many people were shocked at Trump’s election, mostly because almost every major poll prior to Tuesday showed Clinton easily winning enough electoral votes.

Trent, however, was not surprised.

“I always believed there was an underlying force with this thing,” he said, “that force being people that will vote for Trump — people that would vote for him that would not admit they would vote for him, for whatever reason.”

Trent said he believes many people voted for Trump with concerns about the military and jobs.

“They were ready for a change, there’s no question about it,” Trent said. “And they didn’t want to vote for Clinton, because it would be more of the same. It would basically be a third term of Obama.”

Rinaldi attributed part of the shift in Suffolk to Democratic turnout.

Overall, turnout for the presidential race was down in Suffolk. In 2012, 42,566 people voted for a presidential candidate. This week, 42,121 people did so.

“We’re thinking we’re going to need to step up our efforts as far as get out the vote in the future,” she said. “When you have so many people that feel like they don’t want to take part in the process, that’s part of what helps the process break down.”