Trump Can Lose the Popular Vote by 10+ Million Votes and Still Win
In case you thought the 2016 presidential election was frustrating, brace yourselves for 2024!
Trump could be reelected with a lot less than half of the popular vote.
In 2016, NPR published an article that detailed the states and the margins needed in order for a presidential candidate to win with the lowest percentage of the popular vote while still winning the Electoral College.
The result? Only 23 percent.
In other words, a future president could win the election while losing the popular vote with as much as a 54% margin (meaning the loser gets 77% of the total vote count, compared with the winner’s meager 23%).
As long as a candidate secured the 39 least populated states (plus D.C.), winning the popular vote in each one by only a single vote, a victorious outcome would only require 23% of the popular vote, based on turnout numbers from the 2012 election.
Even if a presidential candidate won the 11 most populated states, again winning the popular vote in each one with a single vote, they would only have to secure 27% of the popular vote in order to win.
