Popular vote may have gone my way too, says president-elect

DONALD TRUMP yesterday contended that if the American election had been based on the popular vote he would have “won even bigger and more easily”, in an emphatic response to those claiming his victory is illegitimate because more people voted for Hillary Clinton.

Mr Trump was uncharacteristically withdrawn in his first week as president-elect, sitting for just one television interview and going hours or even days without tweeting. But with petitions circulating to end the electoral college system after Mrs Clinton was denied the White House despite defeat- ing Mr Trump by 0.7 per cent in the overall total, Mr Trump returned to Twitter yesterday. “If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in New York, Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily,” he wrote.

Mr Trump also defended the electoral college, a system he called a “disaster for democracy” on election night four years ago. “The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play,” he wrote yesterday. “Campaigning is much different!”

One petition calling for Mrs Clinton to be made president based on the results of the popular vote now has more than four million signatures. Mr Trump won the electoral college by a 306 to 232 margin, boosted by narrow wins in historically Democratic states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Mrs Clinton never visited Wisconsin during the campaign, and only prioritised Michigan in the final days.

Mr Obama seemed to criticise Mrs Clinton for failing to keep as active a schedule as Mr Trump. “We have to show up everywhere,” he said, using Iowa, a state he won twice but which Mrs Clinton lost, as an example. “I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated that I would win Iowa. It was because I spent 87 days going to every small town and fair and fish fry and VFW Hall.”

Bernie Sanders, runner-up to Mrs Clinton in the Democratic primary elections, said he was “deeply humiliated” that Mr Trump had won so soundly among white working class voters.

“I think that there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic Party does business,” he said.

‘I would have campaigned in New York, Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily’