As the votes continue to roll in after the November 8th presidential election, president-elect Donald Trump is losing big league (or “bigly”?) to Hillary Clinton in the popular vote. Currently, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, Clinton is up by over a million votes with 61,964,000 compared to Trump’s 60,962,000. Trump won the election with 306 votes in the Electoral College, 36 more than he needed to take the White House.
Clinton’s margin is larger than Al Gore’s 543,895 popular vote lead when he suffered the same fate versus George W. Bush in 2000. After going through the same painful loss twice over the past two decades, some Democrats are screaming for the end of the Electoral College altogether. Yesterday, retiring Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) filed legislation calling for an amendment to the Constitution that would end the system, but it’s not likely to pass.
The 2016 election has changed Donald Trump’s thoughts on the Electoral College. Back in 2012, he called it a “disaster.”
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1352263509.0
But after his Electoral College victory, Trump is now a yuge fan.
The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1479217229.0
Because Trump is not only a sore loser, but also a sore winner, he tweeted he would have won the popular vote if he wanted to. But experts say Trump would have fared better if he was, you know, more popular than Clinton.
If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1479216883.0