Donald Trump to Become Fifth Person in U.S. History To Lose Popular Vote and Still Become President

November 16, 2016 - Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will introduce legislation when the Senate comes into session that would eliminate the Electoral College and determine the winner of presidential elections by the outcome of the popular vote.

Hillary Clinton currently leads the popular vote by nearly a million votes (990,758). By the time all the ballots are counted, the New York Times estimates that Clinton may win the popular vote by more than two million votes and more than 1.5 percentage points. Donald Trump will become the fifth President in U.S. history to lose the popular vote and still win the election.

"In my lifetime, I have seen two elections where the winner of the general election did not win the popular vote," said Senator Boxer. "When all the ballots are counted, Hillary Clinton will have won the popular vote by a margin that could exceed two million votes, and she is on track to have received more votes than any other presidential candidate in history except Barack Obama. This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency. The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts."

"In 2012, Donald Trump tweeted, 'The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy,' " Boxer added. "I couldn't agree more. One person, one vote!"

During his interview on "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Trump said his views on the Electoral College haven't changed. "You know, I'm not going to change my mind just because I won. But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win," he said. This morning, he tweeted that the Electoral College is "actually genius."

As of early Tuesday, Hillary Clinton had received 61,929,605 votes (47.8 percent) and Donald Trump had received 60,938,847 votes (47.0 percent), according to the Cook Political Report national popular vote tracker.

Senator Boxer's legislation would amend the Constitution of the United States and abolish the Electoral College. The amendment would take effect when ratified by three-fourths of the states within seven years after its passage in the U.S. Congress.
Source: Senator Barbara Boxer