Who won the popular vote in the 2016 US presidential election?

1. The raw outcome: popular vote vs. Electoral College

Hillary Clinton led the nationwide popular vote by nearly three million ballots — reporting figures include 65,853,516 (48.5%) for Clinton versus 62,984,825 (46.4%) for Trump — while Donald Trump won 304 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 227 and thus won the presidency ^{[1] [4]}. Multiple reputable outlets and official compilations record the same pattern: Clinton won the popular vote, Trump won the Electoral College ^{[2] [5]}.

2. Why winning the popular vote didn’t elect the president

The United States chooses presidents via the Electoral College, not a national popular tally. Most states award all electors to the statewide plurality winner; Maine and Nebraska split some electoral votes by congressional district ^[6]. That allocation allowed Trump to carry enough states — and their electoral votes — to reach a majority of 270 electors even as Clinton accumulated more votes nationwide ^{[7] [6]}.

3. How big was Clinton’s advantage — and why numbers vary in reporting

Contemporaneous and retrospective tallies put Clinton’s lead between about 2.8 million and nearly 3.0 million votes, depending on which final aggregations are cited; TIME summarized her lead as “nearly three million,” while History.com and Britannica reported similar totals and percentages ^{[3] [1] [2]}. Official compilations such as the Federal Elections report and state-certified results underlie these aggregates, but small post-election adjustments and differing inclusion rules for write-ins and some ballots can shift the precise totals by thousands, not millions ^[8].

4. How often this has happened before — historical context

The 2016 election was one of five U.S. presidential elections in which the Electoral College winner did not carry the popular vote — earlier instances occurred in 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000 ^{[9] [6]}. Analysts and advocacy groups have used 2016 as a focal point for debates about whether to reform or abolish the Electoral College; proponents of preserving it argue it protects federalism and small-state influence, while critics point to the democratic mismatch when the popular winner loses ^{[10] [11]}.

5. Post‑election disputes, recounts and investigations — what they did and didn’t change

There were targeted recounts and legal challenges in some states (for example, a partial recount petition in Nevada) and extensive post‑election scrutiny, but these did not overturn the national popular‑vote result or the certified Electoral College outcome ^{[9] [8]}. Separately, U.S. intelligence agencies later concluded that foreign influence efforts targeted the 2016 campaign; those assessments do not alter vote totals but framed later policy and political debates ^[7].

6. What the popular‑vote result meant politically and for turnout

Clinton’s nearly 66 million popular votes approached Barack Obama’s 2012 vote total and represented the largest popular vote total for a losing candidate in U.S. history at that point, highlighting deep geographic polarization: large margins in heavily populated states produced a national lead that did not translate into an Electoral College majority ^{[1] [12]}. Analysts note turnout patterns, demographic splits and county-level shifts — such as Trump’s gains among some white working‑class voters who had supported Obama — as decisive in swing states that delivered Trump the Electoral College edge ^{[9] [1]}.

Limitations: This summary relies on the provided sources’ vote totals and reporting; available sources do not mention any alternate certified nationwide popular‑vote total that contradicts these figures beyond minor tabulation adjustments ^{[8] [3]}. Competing interpretations exist about whether the Electoral College outcome is a democratic defect or an intentional feature; those political arguments are noted in the cited materials ^{[10] [11]}.