The Republicans have won the presidency three times this century, but have only won the popular vote once, on George W. Bush’s second campaign in 2004. The Electoral College screwed us over in 2000 (Bush vs Gore) and 2016 (Trump vs Clinton).
The Deomocrats have also won the presidency three times this century, but also carried the popular vote every time they did. (Also, every time they won, Joe Biden has been on the ticket…)
It’s not intentional gerrymandering the same way that can happen when laying out congressional districts every 10 years, but it’s a form of gerrymandering from where the state boundaries got drawn. In addition, smaller population states have a disproportionate number of electoral votes, because every state gets 2 votes from their senators + a number of votes from their House members proportional to their population (minimum 1 representative, so minimum 3 total.)
Other than Nebraska and Maine, that splits their electoral votes, its winner take all within each state, so if you win a state by 1 million votes or just 1 vote, either way you win all of the state’s electoral votes.
Yes and No. Yes she won the popular vote, by close to 3 million, but No not in the “swing states” that had been considered “safe”. A margin of 10,000 votes in Wisconsin Michigan? Something like that. Anyway, part of that was Democrats seeing she’s a shoo-in and not bothering to vote.
This latest number comes from Decision Desk’s final tally of Pennsylvania’s votes, where Trump won 2,961,875 votes to Clinton’s 2,915,440, a difference of 46,435 votes. Add that to the official results out of Wisconsin, where Clinton lost by 22,177 votes, and Michigan, which she lost by 10,704 votes, and there you have it: 0.057 percent of total voters cost Clinton the presidency.
Electoral College is absolutely the Fuckery Factor though, that's true.