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 over 2.8 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 two perennial swing states which typically decide an election, in Florida and Ohio. Trump also won three "blue wall '' stronghold states that had not gone Republican since the 1980s: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He also won Maine 's 2nd congressional district, which had also not been won by a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Leading up to the election, a Trump victory was considered unlikely by almost all media forecasts. After his victory was assured, some commentators compared the election to President Harry S. Truman 's victorious campaign in 1948 as one of the greatest political upsets in modern American history.
who won the popular vote 2016 presidential election
Clinton