Trump’s victory another example of how Electoral College wins are bigger than popular vote ones

For the fifth time in U.S. history, and the second time this century, a presidential candidate has won the White House while (apparently) losing the popular vote.

Donald Trump won at least 279 electoral votes (306 if you include Arizona and Michigan, where he was leading as of Wednesday afternoon) to Hillary Clinton’s 228 (232 including New Hampshire, where she was ahead by a hair). But the popular vote is a near-tie, according to our tally of unofficial and, in some cases, partial returns. As of Wednesday afternoon, Clinton was slightly ahead of Trump, 59.6 million votes (47.66%) to 59.4 million (47.5%).

This mismatch between the electoral and popular votes came about because Trump won several large states (such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) by very narrow margins, gaining all their electoral votes in the process, even as Clinton claimed other large states (such as California, Illinois and New York) by much wider margins.