Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton moved ahead of President-elect Donald Trump in the popular vote but lost to Trump in the Electoral College, according to the latest numbers emerging Wednesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in the U.S. on the sideline of the U.S. Election Embed programme, reports that as of 10 a.m. (4 p.m. Nigerian time), Clinton had amassed 59,299,381 votes nationally, to Trump’s 59,135,740.
The counted votes so far have a margin of 163,641 votes, putting Clinton on track to become the fourth U.S. presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election.
Neither Clinton nor Trump got more than 50 per cent of the vote but as of the time, Clinton stood at 47.7 per cent and Trump at 47.5 per cent.
However, Trump crossed the 270 Electoral College vote threshold at 2:31 a.m. (8:31 p.m. Nigerian time) with a victory in Wisconsin.
Votes are still being counted across the country, but it appears Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton could win the popular vote, while President-elect Trump wins the Electoral College and thus the White House.
At 5 a.m. on the West Coast, the Associated Press showed Clinton with 59.16 million votes nationally, compared to Trump’s 59 million votes.
If the trend remains as the remaining precincts (polling stations) report their ballots, it would repeat the 2000 results, where Democrat Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote, but George W. Bush won the Electoral College.
Bush received about 500,000 fewer votes than Al Gore in 2,000 but still won the election.
Other states with outstanding precincts included Alaska, Arizona, Oregon, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Washington.
It will take time for the exact numbers to be counted, but the New York Times projects Trump to lose the popular vote by about 1.3 percentage points.
However, Trump is most likely to rack up 306 electoral voters, making up 14 per cent more than Clinton’s.
It is reported that this is only the fourth times in American history that someone has won the Electoral College, but lost the popular vote.
John Quincy Adams also lost the popular vote in 1824, but since none of the four candidates received 50 per cent of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives decided who would be president.
Only one president-elect has lost the popular vote by a wider margin than Trump.
In 1876, Rutherford Hayes won a controversial election that took months to settle, even though he lost the popular vote to Samuel Tilden by three percentage points. (NAN)