As additional votes have been counted in the presidential election, especially on the West Coast, Hillary Clinton’s national popular-vote lead over Donald Trump now exceeds 2 million votes, according to an ongoing tally by the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman.
Hillary Clinton’s vote total is 64,223,986 (48.1% of the vote), while Trump’s is 62,206,395 (46.6%) – a difference of 2,017,591 votes (1.5%).
To put that popular-vote margin into perspective, Al Gore’s popular-vote lead over George W. Bush in 2000 – when Bush won the Electoral College – was 547,000 votes. Also noteworthy: Clinton’s 64-plus million votes is nearing in on the 65.9 million Barack Obama won in 2012.
Of course, presidents are elected by the Electoral College, not the popular vote, and what sunk Clinton’s campaign was her performance in the key battleground states, particularly in the Midwest. And by Wasserman’s count, Trump beat Clinton in 13 key swing states by a 48.5%-to-46.6% margin. In the non-swing states, though, Clinton is ahead of Trump 48.9%-to-45.6%.
