The first thing to understand is that in the United States there is no national election , there are 50 individual state elections plus washington DC . When you see a national popular vote , it is legally meaningless because there is no national election . All that the national popular vote that you see is , is the media compiling the results of all the individual state and the DC elections together . The individual state governments actually get to vote for President through electors in the electoral college . There are a set number of electors voters in the electoral college and they are distributed to the states by population , but every state gets at least three washington dc gets no more than 3 . So that means the small states and DC AlaskaR , DelawareD , District of ColumbiaD , MontanaR , North DakotaR , South DakotaR , VermontD , WyomingR get a disproportionately high number of electoral votes and senate seats compared to the other states . Each state set its own law about their electors , and in most states including Colorado they hold winner take all elections . That means since the democratic canidate , Hillary Clinton , received more votes than any other canidate and won the Colorado election , according to Colorado state law the democrats get all of Colorado ' s electoral votes .