How the US Electoral College can turn a loser into a winner

Donald Trump has already run for president twice, and both times he was the loser in terms of the number of votes across the country.

The reason he became president in 2016 despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton is because the winner of the election is actually determined by a system called the Electoral College.

National polls show Trump will run neck-and-neck with Kamala Harris in the 2024 race. Either you could achieve a majority of votes nationwide.

But neither of the two candidates needs to even win the popular vote – the real question is whether they win votes where it counts most?

How does the electoral college work?

The Electoral College is a group of 538 people who represent their states and officially choose the winner of the presidential election.

To win the election, a candidate must win a majority of those voters' votes – at least 270.

Each hexagon on this map represents one Electoral College vote.

The number in each state broadly reflects population numbers. Albeit anything but perfect.

Take a look California And VermontFor example.

As the most populous state, California has the most voters with 54.

There are now three voters in Vermont, reflecting the significantly smaller population.

How does a candidate win voters?

In general, it's simple: win the most votes in a state and all of its electoral votes are yours.

For example, Trump won the most votes Texas during the 2020 election.

That means he claimed all 38 electoral votes in the state.

Now in new YorkJoe Biden emerged as the winner and received 29 electoral votes.

Here's a look at the final results of the 2020 election.

Mr. Biden won more electoral votes than Trump – ultimately a whopping 306 to 232.

Despite unsubstantiated claims to the contrary, Mr. Biden won the presidency.

Quite simple, right? Well, actually…

There are two exceptions to the winner-take-all rule when it comes to allocating states' electoral votes: Maine And Nebraska.

Only two of their votes are won by being the most popular candidate in the state.

The remaining votes are awarded individually to the popular winner of each congressional district.

That means that in Maine and Nebraska, a candidate can get one or two additional votes even if the majority of people don't vote for him.

Such divisions don't happen often.

The first time was in Nebraska in 2008 and the second time was in Maine in 2016.

But the 2020 election saw a split in both states.

So how can the most popular candidate lose the election?

Every now and then, the person who ends up in power is not the preferred president for most voters.

In fact, it has happened twice in the last six elections.

The last one was in 2016.

Although nearly three million more people voted for Mrs. Clinton than for Trump, he received more votes in the Electoral College and thus the key to the White House.

David Smith, associate professor at the US Studies Center, says the key factor is Where Votes are won.

“In 2016, Mrs. Clinton won large majorities in New York and California, which meant she had a population lead of about 2.9 million,” says Dr. Smith.

“But those margins didn’t matter.”

Mrs. Clinton would have received 84 electoral votes from New York and California whether millions more people voted for her or just one person. So those millions of votes provided a big margin in the popular vote, but not so much in the Electoral College.

Remember what matters.

And that's where Trump came in, well, Trump.

“It came down to these very, very tight margins in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,” explains Dr. Smith.

In WisconsinOnly 22,748 more people voted for Trump than for Mrs. Clinton. He received 10 electoral votes there.

In MichiganThere was a difference of just 10,704 votes, giving Trump an additional 16 electoral votes.

And perhaps the biggest blow to Clinton's campaign was the loss of 20 electoral votes Pennsylvania with a margin of 44,292.

In other words, Trump won these states by very narrow margins in the popular vote, but they delivered decisive numbers in the Electoral College – the opposite effect of what we saw with Mrs. Clinton in California and New York.

If Mrs. Clinton had been able to overcome her small losses in these three states, she would have had 278 electoral votes and won both popular votes And the presidency.

But she didn't have the votes that counted.

Four years later, Mr. Biden did.

Not only did he manage to return these three states to the Democrats with narrow victories, he also won in Arizona and Georgia, thereby reversing the election results.

Dr. Smith says disparities between the popular vote and the Electoral College have become more common in recent election cycles.

“George W. Bush won the 2000 election under controversial circumstances after a recount was stopped in Florida – winning it by just 600 votes and losing the popular vote by half a million.”

“Even in cases where the Electoral College and the popular vote took the same path, like in 2004 and 2020, they came very, very close to producing results that were divisive.”

Load…

How likely is this outcome in 2024?

It depends on which candidate it is.

For Ms. Harris, this is a distinct possibility.

Predictive models, including Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin, put the probability of her winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College at 29 percent.

“It could definitely happen this year,” agrees Dr. Smith too. “(The) swing states are very close to each other. She’s from California, so she’ll increase the numbers there.”

The same outcome is far less likely for Trump — less than 1 percent, according to the Silver Bulletin.

Because even if Trump has a better chance of winning the popular vote than in his previous campaigns, he is unlikely to lose the Electoral College at the same time.

“You would think that if he won the popular vote, it would be almost certain that he would win the Electoral College,” explains Dr. Smith.

But at this point, with polls across the country exceptionally close, anything seems possible.

Credits