2016 clinton trump electoral votes

1. The headline numbers — what the Electoral College recorded

The official, certified Electoral College tally shows Donald Trump with 304 electoral votes and Hillary Clinton with 227, after electors cast ballots on December 19, 2016 and the results were tabulated by the Office of the Federal Register and National Archives ^[1]. Early night projections had shown a 306–232 split in favor of Trump based on state popular votes, but seven “faithless” electors switched their pledged votes, producing the final certified totals of 304 and 227 and scattering a small number of votes to alternative candidates such as Colin Powell, John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders and Faith Spotted Eagle ^{[2] [4]}.

2. Why the Electoral College result differed from the popular vote

Hillary Clinton carried the national popular vote by about 2.9 million ballots — roughly a 2.1 percent margin — yet lost the Electoral College because Trump narrowly flipped several Rust Belt swing states and captured enough states to reach a majority of electoral votes, a dynamic explained by concentrated Democratic margins in some states and razor-thin Republican margins in others ^{[2] [3]}. Key to Trump’s path were victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the “blue wall” states — which he won by a combined margin of fewer than 80,000 votes and delivered 46 electoral votes that had been expected to favor Clinton ^{[5] [2]}.

3. How early projections and polls framed the night

Most national and swing-state polls and many probabilistic models had favored Clinton, with some projections placing her Electoral College prospects in the 307–322 range on the eve of the vote; media and betting markets were surprised when Trump overperformed polls in crucial states and secured the Electoral College majority ^[5]. The Associated Press’s calls on Pennsylvania and later congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska were decisive moments on election night that pushed Trump to the electoral threshold; the AP’s Pennsylvania call moved Trump to 267 before subsequent calls reached the magic number ^[5].

4. The faithless electors and how they altered headline tallies

Although state-level popular votes initially suggested a 306–232 split, seven pledged electors did not vote for their pledged candidate: five pledged to Clinton and two pledged to Trump defected, producing final cast-vote totals that reduced Trump’s count to 304 and Clinton’s to 227 while assigning a handful of votes to third-party or alternative figures ^{[2] [4]}. State-certified certificates of vote and the National Archives’ rolling certification are the authoritative record; the Archives lists the 304–227 result as the certified outcome ^[1].

5. Conflicting secondary accounts and the authoritative source

Some analyses and commentaries have reported alternate tallies — for example, a Fraser Institute piece cited a 290–232 figure for Trump — but those variations reflect counting conventions or earlier projections rather than the elector-certified record ^[6]. For clarity and finality, the Office of the Federal Register/National Archives certification is the primary source for electoral vote totals; it records Trump 304, Clinton 227 ^[1].

6. The political and historical context of the split result

The 2016 split between popular and electoral outcomes joined a short list of prior elections where the popular-vote leader lost the presidency, and analysts point to geographic vote concentration, shifts among white working-class voters, and targeted wins in swing states as central explanations for how Clinton’s popular-vote advantage failed to translate into an Electoral College majority ^{[7] [5]}. Post-election datasets and state-certified results (including official state certificates and FEC documentation of cast elector votes) underpin these conclusions and provide the granular evidence behind the national totals ^{[4] [1]}.