Early in the morning on Wednesday, Donald Trump assumed the role of president-elect of the United States.
But when you're looking at the voting numbers (which still haven't all been reported as of the publication of this article), you might find yourself asking a question: How is that Donald Trump could be the winner of the election if, as of right now, Hillary Clinton got more votes?
According to Politico, at 9 a.m. this morning, a whopping six hours after Trump gave his victory speech, Hillary Clinton had a lead of 150,000 votes. And the Los Angeles Times is predicting that she will officially win the popular vote when all of the numbers have been reported.
So how did she lose? Because of the electoral college. We have a full explanation of how the system works here, but the TLDR is that every state has a certain number of electoral votes. And if Trump won a majority of votes in your state — even if you voted for Hillary — all of your state's electoral votes will go for Trump. A candidate needs more than 270 electoral votes to win. Trump has more than 270 votes... so even if he has less citizens' votes, he is still the winner.
Exhausting? Yes. New? No.
In 2000, even though Al Gore officially won the popular vote, he lost to George W. Bush.
NPR has a list of other presidential nominees who lost the election even though they had more Americans' votes. They include: Andrew Jackson in 1824, Samuel Tilden in 1876, and Grover Cleveland in 1888.
Every vote matters. But it's a little more complicated than you might have thought.
Related: How Many Electoral Votes Are There?