Despite losing Tuesday’s presidential election, Hillary Clinton appears to be on pace to win the popular vote, an ironic twist in an election in which her opponent repeatedly said the system was rigged against him.
Just two days before Election Day, Republican businessman Donald Trump tweeted: “The Electoral College is a disaster for a democracy.”
As it turns out, without the Electoral College, Trump probably wouldn’t be the president-elect.
A day after Election Day, Clinton held a narrow lead in the popular vote, according to unofficial results tallied by The Associated Press. With nearly 125 million votes counted, Clinton had 47.7 percent of the vote and Trump had 47.5 percent.
That’s a lead of about 236,000 votes.
Many states count votes after Election Day, so Clinton isn’t guaranteed to keep her lead. However, most of the outstanding votes appear to be in Democratic-leaning states, making it very likely she will become the second Democratic candidate for president this century to win the popular vote but lose the presidency.
The biggest chunk of uncounted votes is in California. Washington State, New York, Oregon and Maryland also have large numbers of uncounted votes. Clinton won all those states, and if the trends continue, she will pad her lead by more than 1 million votes.
There are also votes to be counted in Arizona and Alaska, two Republican-leaning states. But they are far outnumbered by uncounted votes in Democratic states.
Under the Electoral College system, each state gets one vote for each member of Congress representing the state. California has the most, with 55. Seven states have only three. The District of Columbia has three, even though the nation’s capital has no vote in Congress.
It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency. Trump’s total stands at 279, with races in Michigan, New Hampshire and Arizona too close to call.
There have been occasional calls to scrap the Electoral College, with no success. The latest push came after the 2000 presidential election, in which Democrat Al Gore lost to Republican George W. Bush, despite winning the popular vote.
Any calls to scrap the Electoral College aren’t likely to go anywhere this time, either, with Republicans controlling both the House and Senate.
Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate for vice president, praised Clinton on Wednesday for winning the popular vote.
But when Clinton made her concession speech, she didn’t mention it.
(AP)
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10 Responses
doesnt help her, she is history
“As it turns out, without the Electoral College, Trump probably wouldn’t be the president-elect”.
Wrong again AP.
If not for this system every rational thinking American in NY, CA, TX etc. etc. would go out and vote. Right now in so many states there’s no point in voting…
And just another dagger in the hearts of all Dems and especially to the wicked witch herself. “Oh but I’m more popular” she’ll crow but alas the framers of our great country bailed us out. How ya doin al Gore? They say lightening doesn’t strike twice. I guess Al and Hillary would disagree. .
#2: Good point. Also, the campaigning would have been orchestrated completely differently, more broadly, not focusing on the swing states (because there’d be no such thing).
Re comment 3: So, avi732, you are happy that the president-elect does not receive a majority of all votes? Are you sure about that?
I accept that Dopie Donald won the election, but I am a little – only a little – troubled that the majority candidate did not win the election.
Actually, the Donald was right….the system was “rigged” *but intentionally so) by the founding fathers whose underlying intent was more elitist than democratic (small “D”), as the Federalist Papers clearly show. While that is our system and has been respected over 220 years, Trump should be careful about claiming a “mandate” when more Americans turned out for HRC and a substantial number of those who voted “for” him were really voting “against” Hillary.
and if the Satmar and Square Chasidim would have voted for trump, he would have won the Popular vote too and had a better mandate to repeal and replace obamacare, cancel the Iran Nuclear deal, drain the swamp, and protect the country from Islamic refugees.
He will, no doubt, accomplish all of this.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA CONTINUING THEIR LIES to soothe The Devil. SORE LOSERS!
The only “popular votes” she got were from the media people who are disconnected from the public and are still living in fantasy land, as well as, from the liberal leftist unemployed low-lives who are now running amok all over America committing violence and causing chaos. It’s precisely because of these hooligans that America elected Trump. Lawlessness must stop! Enough is enough!
No way were the polls EVER as close as Mainstream Media Propaganda made them out to be. They were FAKE POLLS FROM DAY 1 on a daily basis BRIBED BY HILLARY, as was exposed by WikiLeaks. WHOM ARE YOU STILL TRYING TO FOOL? We all know the truth by now. Had MSMPL not brainwashed their listeners for months to please the Criminal-in-Chief when they were well aware of the truth, they wouldn’t have caused all the heartaches to her constituents.
HILLARY’S TEENY-WEENY RALLIES, including many who were paid to join the rallies, are best proof that THE WITCH HAD NO CHANCE whatsoever to win the elections. Many scheduled rallies even had to be cancelled because of the extremely low turnout. Who’d want to stand in the daled-amoss of a criminal of such high caliber, a dictator who’s still out there “eliminating” (murdering) those who leaked her villainous acts, anyway?
“As it turns out, without the Electoral College, Trump probably wouldn’t be the president-elect.” BALONEY! TRUMP HAD A LANDSLIDE WINNING IN ALL NON-MSMPL POLLS and at the end, Trump won about 85% of the votes (even liberal NY Times admitted that he had a 95% chance of winning). And had there not been all that election fraud in numerous States, voting machines rigged and people had to leave without voting for him in many voting districts because the machines only allowed you to select Hillary, the Electoral College would have been much, much higher for Trump.
STOP WHINING and START REPORTING THE TRUTH.
#5 & 6 Hillary did NOT have a majority of anything! She only had a small amount of Americans who really voted for her. As I said, her tiny rallies which consisted between 36 people and 1,000 (one-thousand) people – never more – are best proof to that. She’s an unwanted witch dictator which most people grasped right away. Hard to get those lying Mainstream media propaganda out of your head, right? It would suit you to join the protests like those hooligans out there.
No mandate for the winner, simple as that.