Trump tweets on Clinton winning popular vote
Donald Trump wrote a series of tweets Wednesday defending his Electoral College victory, shortly after the finalized popular vote count showed Hillary Clinton with nearly 3 million more votes than the president-elect.
He said on Twitter that campaigning for an electoral victory is “much more difficult & sophisticated” than an effort to win the popular vote, slamming Clinton for her focus “on the wrong states:”
Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016
I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote - but would campaign differently
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016
I have not heard any of the pundits or commentators discussing the fact that I spent FAR LESS MONEY on the win than Hillary on the loss!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016
The series of tweets comes just after the nonpartisan Cook Political Report announced that Clinton’s final popular vote tally totaled 65,844,610, compared to Mr. Trump’s 62,979,636. That’s a difference of 2,864,974 or an edge of 2.1 percentage points. About 7.8 million people also voted for other candidates in the race.
Some of the other interesting facts about the election gathered by the Cook Political Report included these observations about specific parts of the country:
- Texas saw an increase of 12.2 percent in the number of votes cast for president, the greatest increase nationwide. In contrast, Mississippi had the largest decrease in votes cast for president -- it was down 6.7 percent.
- Clinton performed better that Mr. Obama did in 2012 in Arizona, Georgia and Virginia, although as was the case in 2012, Clinton lost Arizona and Georgia and won Virginia.
- Howard County, Iowa, was the lone county that both voted for Mr. Obama by more than 20 percent in 2012 and also voted for Mr. Trump by more than 20 percent in 2016.
- Orange County, California voted Democratic for president for the first time since 1936. And Elliott County, Kentucky voted Republican for the first time since it was founded in 1869.
Contrary to other criticisms of media coverage of the election, an analysis by the Report found that the most frequently talked about issue on broadcast television regarding the presidential race related to jobs. According to ad tracking data by Kantar Media, jobs were mentioned in 21 percent of general election ads.