Voters selected members of the Electoral College in each state, in most cases by "winner - takes - all '' plurality; those state electors in turn voted for a new president and vice president on December 19, 2016. While Clinton received about 2.9 million more votes nationwide, a margin of 2.1 %, Trump won 30 states with a total of 306 electors, or 57 % of the 538 available. He won the four perennial swing states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Iowa, as well as the three "blue wall '' stronghold states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which had not been won by a Republican presidential candidate since the 1980s. Leading up to the election, a Trump victory was considered unlikely by almost all media forecasts.
who won the popular vote in the 2017 presidential election
Clinton