Despite winning the U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump appears to be on track to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, becoming the second straight Republican president to do so.
As vote counting continued across the country, Clinton held a narrow lead in the popular vote, according to unofficial results tallied by The Associated Press. With nearly 125 million votes counted, Clinton had 47.7 percent of the vote and Trump had 47.5 percent.
That's a lead of about 236,000 votes.
Just two days before Election Day, Trump tweeted: "The Electoral College is a disaster for a democracy.'' And yet, without the Electoral College, the brash businessman would not be headed to the White House.
Last happened in 2000
The last time a presidential candidate lost the election despite getting more votes was in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore lost to Republican George W. Bush.
The biggest chunk of uncounted votes is in California. Washington State, New York, Oregon and Maryland also have large numbers of uncounted votes. Clinton won all those states, and if the trends continue, she will pad her lead by more than 1 million votes.
There also are votes to be counted in Arizona and Alaska, two Republican-leaning states. But they are far outnumbered by uncounted votes in Democratic states.
Takes 270 votes to win
Under the Electoral College system, each state gets one vote for each member of Congress representing the state. California has the most, with 55. Seven states have only three. The District of Columbia has three, even though the nation's capital has no vote in Congress.
It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency. Trump's total stands at 279, with races in Michigan, New Hampshire and Arizona too close to call. Clinton has 228.
