With 279 Electoral College votes, Trump won the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and will be inaugurated on Jan. 20.
During early voting, the American population headed off to the polls to cast their ballot for the presidential race. Commentary and predictions began early Tuesday with the Upshot Presidential Forecast putting former Secretary Hillary Clinton in the lead with an 85 percent probability of winning.
Starting with the closure of the east coast polls, Donald Trump began the race in the lead until 10 p.m. CST when the west coast closed their polls pushing the race in electoral votes into the direction of Clinton.
By 10 p.m. CST, the Republican Party secured the majority of the senate with 52 seats and the house with 239 seats.
At 10:30 p.m. CST, results from Utah and Florida pushed Trump passed Clinton and continued to reach closer to the goal of 270 electoral votes.
As the night continued the importance of Clinton holding Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, among other key states, played a big role in the race. It was clear that Clinton had a strong hold on eastern coast states but experienced a fall in votes after 12 a.m. CST. Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania flipped to the Republican Party, furthering the gap between Clinton and Trump.
In California, votes came in slow but showed heavy support for Clinton in the early statistics, but by 12 a.m. CST, it was clear that Clinton was not going to make a comeback from the gap of electoral votes. News and media outlets refused to call the election, claiming that not all ballots had been counted and multiple precincts were failing to report their votes. They then explained how the ballots unaccounted for could affect the race but made it clear that the data was not going to change and that Trump was very likely to become the President-elect.
At 3:19 a.m. EST, Clinton made a phone call to Trump announcing the end of the race and conceding to him. Trump followed by making an appearance at his campaign headquarters to accept his presidential nomination. He took 279 Electoral votes compared to Clinton’s 228. Trump began his victory speech by addressing his followers, “I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us – it’s about us – on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign.”
Clinton made her concession speech Wednesday morning. “This is not the outcome we wanted or worked so hard for and I’m sorry we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country,” she said. Though Clinton lost the Electoral College vote, she did win the popular vote, with votes continuing to roll in as late as Wednesday afternoon.
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