Trump Won Fewer Votes Than Romney Did

Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States–despite winning less votes than Mitt Romney did 2012.

The numbers are stunning:

Turnout
2012 Obama: 65.9m
2016 Clinton: 59.1m = -6.8m
2012 Romney: 60.9m
2016 Trump: 59m = -1.9m

You tell me what happened

— Domenico Montanaro (@DomenicoNPR) November 9, 2016

If the numbers are accurate, then the key to Trump’s stunning victory was a lack of turnout for Hillary Clinton–apparently she could not generate the same excitement about the Democrat Party’s base that President Barack Obama could.

Indeed, millions of people chose not to vote:

Updated poll numbers

231,556,622 eligible voters

46.9% didn’t vote
25.6% voted for Clinton
25.5% voted for Trump
1.7% voted for Johnson

— Josh Nelson (@SSS_joshnelson) November 9, 2016

And Trump’s win was due to razor-thin victories in key states:

These elections are so close. Trump won comfortably by winning by 1.4 points or less in four key states. pic.twitter.com/VstxNgJYZr

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 9, 2016

Trump won 75 electoral votes by getting a total of 150,000-200,000 more votes in Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 9, 2016

Ironically, it appears likely that Clinton will win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College vote, making her the Democrats’ new Al Gore, without the drama of a recount.

All that said, there is one major caveat about the numbers showing that Trump won less votes than Romney:

Be careful with these analyses. Vote totals will creep up in the days ahead, even if they don’t change the outcome. https://t.co/hVeEJASjgG

— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) November 9, 2016

Regardless, the fact remains that Trump pulled off an upset victory due to Clinton being unable to generate turnout, which is really due to one thing:

Trump won fewer votes in victory than Romney did in defeat. Never underestimate what an awful candidate Hillary was.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 9, 2016

Clinton truly was enough of a terrible candidate to lose, even though the preliminary votes show that Trump earned fewer votes than Romney.