Former President Donald Trump shared during his rally in Virginia over the weekend that it’s “tough” for Republicans to win the popular vote.
Trump said at his rally that voters need to turn out on Tuesday because he wants to win “everything” in this election, not just the electoral college. Still, Trump noted that this would be a tough task, thanks to Democratic strength in certain states.
“When you have New York, Illinois, and California, you have automatically, it’s like ridiculous, automatically goes to a Democrat, it’s tough to win the popular vote because they’re three big states,” he said.
When Trump won the presidency in 2016, he lost the popular vote to then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In 2020, he lost the popular vote and electoral college to President Biden.
But Trump isn’t the only Democrat to lose the popular vote, as former President George W. Bush also lost the popular vote in 2000 despite winning the presidency.
Now, the former president says he would love to win the popular vote, as polls show him leading in “everything,” but he also alluded to false claims about voter fraud playing a role in this election.
“I’d love to win the popular vote with them cheating. Let them cheat because that’s what they do. They do it very well. They’re very professional, but I think we have a really good chance to win the popular vote, and I think things are going to be very interesting,” Trump said.
Winning the popular vote isn’t enough for a candidate to be declared the victor because of the Electoral College. A candidate must win 270 electoral votes to secure the White House. If both candidates fail to reach 270, a situation experts have said is possible, then the decision on who is president falls to Congress.
Still, polling shows that if Harris wins the popular vote, it may not be by as much as past Democrats, like Clinton, who won it by 2 points, and Biden, who won it by 4.5 points.
As things sit, the two candidates remain neck-and-neck, with The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ, which tallies national polls, showing Trump and Harris are essentially tied, being split by .2%, with the advantage going to Trump.