Victory Margins

Hillary won 20 states and the District of Columbia.  If you add up the people who live in these places, you get approximately 140 million people.  Trump won 30 states.  If you add up the people who live in those states, you get about 181 million people.  So, the territory that went Trump is more populous than the area that went Clinton.  That's one of the handy features of the electoral college.  But let's take a closer look.

Hillary won the 5 states and the District of Columbia by a margin of greater than 60 percent: Hawaii, California, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maryland.  Roughly 55 million people live in these states and DC.

Trump won 10 states by 60% or greater: Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Nebraska.  29 million people live in these states.

Hillary won the majority of votes (over 50% of all votes cast) in another 8 states: New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Washington, Connecticut, Delaware, and Oregon.  58 million people live in these states.

Trump won the majority of votes in 14 additional states: Idaho, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kansas, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, Alaska, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, and North Carolina.  94 million people live in these states.

So far, based purely on population of regions that were definitively won by each candidate, Hillary took 13 states and DC with a combined population of 113 million people.  Trump won 24 states with a combined population of 123 million.  The remaining states were won by pluralities; no candidate broke 50% of the total votes counted.

Hillary won 7 states with anywhere from 46.9% to 49.9% of the votes cast: Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Maine, New Hampshire, Colorado, Minnesota.  27 million people live in these states.

Trump won 6 states with 45.9% to 49.5% of the votes: Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Utah.  59 million people live in these states.

 

Hillary's 60% plus margin in states that totaled 55 million people vs. Trump's 60% plus margin in states with only 29 million people explains how it is that Hillary took the popular votes but lost in the electoral college.  However, everyone knew the rules going in and the target was electoral votes, not popular votes.  According to CNN, Hillary's margin in California alone is 3.4 million votes, a margin which exceeds her popular vote margin by 1.5 million votes!  Did she really win the popular vote from a national perspective or just the California vote?