Much has been made of Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote; as of November 27, she is reported to have won 64,863,855 votes to Trump’s 62,507,791 votes. Now because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, some argue that she is the rightful winner of the election. But of course, this is wrong- the election was always an electoral college contest, and everyone knew this going in.**
Yet some say Donald Trump’s win is made suspect or weakened by Hillary’s popular vote win. And it seems some feel this justifies doing recounts in certain states– despite no evidence of voter tampering in those particular states and practically zero chance that these recounts will impact the election results. The popular vote tally may be interesting, but ultimately it counts for little, because this was an electoral college contest won fair and square by Donald Trump, as even the Obama White House has confirmed. Yet perhaps a cursory analysis of the popular vote is helpful to demonstrate that Donald Trump and Republicans actually won many significant “popular vote” contests.
First, Trump won the popular vote of 30 of 50 states, even flipping 5 states that in previous elections went to the Democratic candidate.
Second, Republicans captured the majority of the “popular vote” for the House on Election Day, collecting about 56.3 million votes while Democrats got about 53.2 million.
It is true however that Democrats out-tallied Republicans in the popular vote for Senate races– 45.2 million Americans cast a vote for a Democratic Senate candidate vs. 39.3 million Americans who voted for a Republican.
But again, if we look closely at the election results we observe that Donald Trump’s win is quite impressive. Of 3,141 counties in the United States, Trump won 3,084 of them, while Clinton won only 57.
And interestingly, in “blue” New York State, Trump won 46 of 62 counties; Hillary won 16.
It has been reported that Clinton won the popular vote by approx. 1.5 million votes. So in the 5 counties that encompass NYC (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Richmond & Queens) Clinton received well over 2 million more votes than Trump (Clinton only won 4 of these counties; Trump won Richmond). These 5 counties alone can more than account for Clinton edging Trump in the popular vote of the entire country.
Think about it. These 5 counties comprise 319 square miles. The United States is comprised of 3,797,000 square miles.
In a country encompassing almost 4 million square miles, it would be ludicrous to suggest that the vote of those who inhabit a mere 319 square miles should dictate the outcome of a national election. Large, densely populated Democrat cities (NYC, Chicago, LA, etc.) don’t and shouldn’t speak for the rest of our country.
As for the Electoral College, which is what this and every election comes down to, Trump won decisively: 306 to 232 electoral votes, in other words, this means he won the “popular vote” contest of 30 of 50 states.
To summarize, Donald Trump’s victory is solid because he won the popular votes of a geographically diverse majority of states, as also did House Republicans. Moreover, the GOP maintained their majorities in both the Senate and the House. Republicans also have a historically large 31-18 majority of governors across the country.
What is the takeaway? People across America spoke decisively in this election, by their votes saying they prefer and desire Donald Trump’s new direction for the country, and overwhelmingly favor a Republican approach to governing.
**NOTE: Some statistics and wording contained in this article is taken from an anonymous Facebook post I came across. I am indebted to the writer of that post for inspiring this analysis.
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