Clinton Leads by Nearly 3 Million Votes, Loses Anyway
Shortly after the election 5 weeks ago I- like nearly everyone else in the country- noted that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote while Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote.
In the weeks since the election the popular vote totals for each candidate have continued rise. It takes a while for states to count mail-in ballots, provisional ballots, etc. And then there are the recounts, whether triggered automatically in various states when the vote tallies are especially close, or when litigated by a challenger, such as Jill Stein attempted in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
It's interesting that as the counting process has gone on, Clinton's lead in the popular vote has steadily widened. On November 10 she was ahead by 280,000 votes. That figure climbed to 1 million, then 2 million, then 2.5 million. This week, after all states certified their final tallies, Clinton's lead stands at 2.85 million votes. (Source: NY Times article Presidential Election Results: Donald J. Trump Wins, updated 13 Dec 2016.)
2.85 Million. That's no small margin; that's more than 2% of all votes cast. Plenty of presidential elections have been won by thinner percentage margins than that. Though in nearly all of them the winner of the popular vote has also won the Electoral College vote.
In the weeks since the election the popular vote totals for each candidate have continued rise. It takes a while for states to count mail-in ballots, provisional ballots, etc. And then there are the recounts, whether triggered automatically in various states when the vote tallies are especially close, or when litigated by a challenger, such as Jill Stein attempted in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
It's interesting that as the counting process has gone on, Clinton's lead in the popular vote has steadily widened. On November 10 she was ahead by 280,000 votes. That figure climbed to 1 million, then 2 million, then 2.5 million. This week, after all states certified their final tallies, Clinton's lead stands at 2.85 million votes. (Source: NY Times article Presidential Election Results: Donald J. Trump Wins, updated 13 Dec 2016.)
2.85 Million. That's no small margin; that's more than 2% of all votes cast. Plenty of presidential elections have been won by thinner percentage margins than that. Though in nearly all of them the winner of the popular vote has also won the Electoral College vote.