The final tally is in and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trumped President-elect Donald Trump in the popular vote. She lost the Electoral College vote, but Clinton has another consolation prize – she garnered more votes than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history. Clinton received 2.9 million more votes than Trump, according to CNN, with 65,844,954 (48.2 percent) to the GOP elect’s 62,979,879 (46.1 percent). Andrew Jackson won by more than 10 percent in 1824, but John Quincy Adams became president, according to US Elections Atlas. Samuel Tilden earned 3 percent more votes than Rutherford B. Hayes, who won by one electoral vote. Democrat and first female major party presidential nominee Clinton won 2.1 percent more votes than Trump, but only succeeded in earning 227 electoral votes to Trump’s 304.
Trump took to his main means of communication – Twitter – in November to say he won the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016
On Wednesday, the president-elect tweeted that an Electoral College win “is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote.”
An hour later, the next POTUS tweeted that he “would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on [the] popular vote.”
Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016
I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote – but would campaign differently
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016
