Clinton Wins Popular Vote, Trump Wins Electoral

In this year’s election Donald Trump won the electoral votes with 279 while Hillary Clinton finished with just 228. The popularity vote was closer with Clinton finishing ahead of Trump with 59,938,290 votes with Donald finishing with 59,704,886 votes. You may be wondering how Donald Trump won the election if Hillary won the popularity vote? It all comes down to the electoral votes.

Each state gets a total of at least 3 votes, that number depending on the amount of senators and representatives in Congress. To win the election you have to have at least 270 votes out of 538 total votes in all. The popular vote does not directly vote for the candidate that you chose but towards specific “electors” from your state. Therefore, whatever presidential candidate wins in the popularity vote in your state is the candidate that the state’s electors vote for. An elector does have the right to break his or her promise by voting for another candidate but throughout our nation’s history, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged.

Even though Trump lost the popularity vote by a small margin, he managed to win the election through the electoral votes. Trump will be inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017 and the Obama administration has already started the process of transitioning Trump and his staff.