Hillary Clinton Got 1.7 Million More Popular Votes Than Donald Trump So Far In 2016
As seen in the above photo, President-elect Donald Trump flashed a thumbs up sign as he arrived at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse on Sunday, November 20. Whereas President-elect Trump was all smiles in Bedminster, New Jersey, others were taking note of the popular vote count that was reported the same day, which has been continually updated as more votes are counted, reports Slate.
The publication notes that the 2016 National Popular Vote Tracker by The Cook Political Report shows constantly updated figures that track exactly how many votes Trump received versus Hillary Clinton, seeing as though there was controversy over which candidate actually won the popular vote. According to the tracker, Clinton received 63,541,056 votes, while Trump received 61,864,015 votes — as of this writing. That means Clinton got 1,677,041 — or 1.7 million — more votes in the popular vote count than her opponent. The tracker also breaks down the amount of popular votes for Clinton and Trump by state — as well as by swing state.
And the vote counting continues.
According to Slate, Hillary’s wide lead of 1.7 million popular votes is much bigger than the popular vote lead that Al Gore had in 2000, when Gore lost the presidency to George W. Bush. Gore won the popular vote with 540,520 more votes than Bush.
As reported by Yahoo!, even though it has almost been a full two weeks since the presidential election occurred on November 8, votes continue to be counted and finalized.
As such, with the final popular vote still being counted and revealing Clinton’s widening lead over Trump, controversy about the Electoral College voting process versus the popular vote alone is being renewed.
According to the Daily Mail, even though Clinton received more popular votes than Trump thus far, there weren’t enough popular votes in the states that counted — in order for Clinton to clinch the all-important Electoral College votes she needed to win the presidency.
With Trump winning Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, it became apparent on the night of the presidential election that Clinton would not receive the amount of votes she needed to pull out a win.
As of this writing, reports the publication, Trump has secured 290 Electoral College votes. However, Clinton only received 232 Electoral College votes.
With Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes still being finalized and unassigned, the final vote count still isn’t in until all of that states’ votes are counted.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the popular vote lead enjoyed by Clinton wasn’t enough to give her a victory in the critical states with high Electoral College numbers.
“Put simply, Mrs. Clinton performed well relative to Barack Obama in states that didn’t matter for the Electoral College because they were states she could count on winning easily or losing badly. In two prime examples, Mrs. Clinton ran up the score in California, which hasn’t voted for a Republican since 1988, and outperformed Mr. Obama in Texas, which last voted for a Democrat in 1976.
“Meanwhile, Mr. Trump eked out victories in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and won solidly in Iowa and Ohio. All those states voted twice for Mr. Obama.”
The popular vote is still an important issue to those posting the following comments about Clinton’s popular vote lead on social media.
“My mom explained it to me over 20 years ago when my liberal teacher planted the idea in my head that popular vote is better.”
“Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 1,677,041 and that number is still rising.”
“Here’s a newsflash: EVERY close POTUS election runs the risk of a candidate getting the popular vote, but losing the Electoral College.”
[Featured Image by Carolyn Kaster/AP Images]
