Thomson Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissed critics who point out that Hillary Clinton will likely win the overall popular vote despite losing the 2016 election.
In a series of tweets Tuesday morning, Trump claimed that if the US did not adhere to its Electoral College system, which proportionally divvies out votes to states based on population, the real-estate mogul would've adopted a different campaign strategy altogether.
"If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily," Trump wrote.
He continued:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/798521053551140864
The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!
Trump's comments come as many of the left have taken solace in Clinton's likely million-vote win in the popular vote, despite losing the Electoral College to Trump. Key Electoral College vote-heavy states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida, and Ohio swung Trump's way, while Clinton racked up large margins of victory in states like California.
Still, observers have noted that it's fairly unclear to judge whether Trump may have actually lost given that the campaigns would not have focused on the 10-12 key battleground states which they visited repeatedly throughout the general election.
Trump wasn't always so keen on the Electoral College.
In a series of tweets after former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's loss in 2012, Trump lamented the Electoral College system, calling it a "disaster for democracy."
During an interview that aired Sunday on "60 Minutes, the president-elect claimed that he would love to have a popular vote election over the current Electoral College system.
"I’m not going to change my mind just because I won. But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes," Trump said.
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