How Hillary Clinton won more popular votes than husband Bill when he was elected President - but still lost

Popular votes: Hillary Clinton and husband Bill
Getty
Chloe Chaplain10 November 2016

Hillary Clinton scored a larger share of the vote in the 2016 US Election than her husband Bill did when he was first elected as President.

Despite Mr Clinton winning a landslide victory against George Bush in 1992, he had a considerably lower percentage of the votes than his wife did in her defeat.

The percentage difference would equate, in this year’s election, to more than five-and-a half million votes. And yet, Mrs Clinton still lost out to Republican rival Donald Trump.

The figures of the 1992 race for presidency were skewed slightly by the emergence of surprise independent candidate, Texan tycoon Ross Perot, who gained traction a populist manifesto.

But the statistics nonetheless re-ignite the debate about how representational the American political system is.

As of Thursday midday, Hillary Clinton had 230,000 more popular votes than Donald Trump, winning 47.7 per cent of voters round.

Whereas victor Donald Trump’s votes amounted to 47.5 per cent.

President Clinton: Bill Clinton making a speech in 1999

Whilst it may be hard for Democrats to stomach figures showing their losing candidate won thousands more votes than the President-elect, it is only a 0.2 per cent difference.

But the comparison of Mrs Clinton’s figures to those of her husband in his election victory is more striking.

What are popular votes?

Popular votes are the individual votes cast by each person So, when a candidate has the most popular votes it simply means more people voted for them than other candidates.

But the US president is not selected by individual voters. It is selected by electors (sort of representatives) that people in each state vote for.

The number of electors per state is dependent on the population size, but each state generally uses all its electors’ or ‘Electoral College’ votes to back the Presidential candidate that has the overall majority state-wide.

This is regardless of the margin of majority – so a candidate could get five or 50 per cent more, and still win the state.

In order to win the election, a candidate must get 270 Electoral College votes –the majority of the total 578.

The system is designed to keep regional balance and stop candidates popular in one part of the country overwhelming the whole vote.

But it does not always mean the person with the most votes has the most electoral votes and therefore wins the election.

When Bill Clinton was first elected President, he had 43.01 per cent of the popular vote - 4.6 per cent less than his wife in 2016.

And yet, despite the lower percentage, he won an impressive 370 electoral votes giving a clear win over rivals.

In 1996, Bill Clinton again won the election with a clear electoral vote majority of 379. He had 49.23 per cent of the vote - just 1.53 per cent more than Mrs Clinton who won 228 points.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in