Though the final final campaign-donation numbers are still not yet fully tabulated by anyone, we’re close enough now (99+% of the way toward 100% accuracy), so that reliably close approximations can at last be presented:
In the 2016 U.S. Presidential contest, Hillary Clinton’s campaign received $300,084,866 from individuals who donated at least $200; Donald Trump’s campaign received only $45,725,669 — 15% as much as she did from such donors. For every $1 Trump got there, Clinton got $6.67.
In total, however, Clinton’s money-advantage over Trump wasn’t nearly so large, because Trump received millions of small donations, which enabled his campaign to remain competitive (though still considerably smaller than hers).
Whereas Hillary got 53.27% of her total appx. $775M as direct individual donations of $200+, Trump got only 13.94% of his appx. $425M that way.
In addition to individual donations, each campaign also received donations from various types of PACS or Political Action Committees, which are supposedly not controlled by, nor coordinated with, the candidate’s own campaign. That’s called “outside money.” The figures from some of these PACS haven’t yet been fully tabulated, but almost. (The individual donation-figures that were just cited are exact — all in, and fully tabulated — however.) Here are the outside-money numbers, as of now:
CLINTON OUTSIDE MONEY: $206,055,296 according to this [but mainly Clinton Priorities USA Action SuperPAC $192,065,768, out of an actual total of around $212M]
TRUMP OUTSIDE MONEY: $75,253,193 according to this [but mainly actually $90M 4 PACS: Great America, Rebuilding America, Make America #1, Our Principles, of an actual total of around $114M]
Here are the web-pages from which these figures are copied (or, in other instances, estimated):
https://www.opensecrets.org/
https://www.opensecrets.org/
https://www.opensecrets.org/
https://www.opensecrets.org/
https://www.opensecrets.org/
As regards what the electoral result of this was:
Trump won 304 Electoral College votes; Clinton won 227.
In the Electoral College, there’s a winner-take-all system, so that to win a state by 1 vote gets all of its Electoral College votes, no different than if the state has been won by millions of votes.
Clinton campaigned in California, which wasn’t even in contention between her and Trump, and she achieved there an enormous victory-margin over Trump, of 4,269,978 votes; she won that state by 61.73%, compared to Trump’s 31.62%. She won that state by 4,269,977 votes more than were needed for her to win the state.
In all other states than California, Clinton lost nationwide by a total of 1,401,459 votes. However, because of her massive 4,269,978-vote win of California, she won the popular vote nationwide by 2,868,519 votes. If the election were to have been decided by popular votes instead of Electoral College votes, we’d have the President whom Californians overwhelmingly preferred, not the President whom the residents of the other 49 states strongly preferred; we’d have a President who was chosen by Californians, ruling over all of the 50 states.
These figures are taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/
So:
Clinton spent $775 million and won 65,853,625 votes, which cost $11.77 per vote won; Trump spent $425 million and won 62,985,106 votes, which cost $6.75 per vote won.
In the far more important — indeed all-important — Electoral College cost-per-vote-won, Clinton spent $3,414,097 per Electoral College vote; and Trump spent $1,398,026 per Electoral College vote.
More discussion of the Presidential contest’s voting results (as of 22 December 2016) can be found here.
So: that’s the final report on the 2016 U.S. Presidential contest, both the dollars and the votes.
My comments on the election’s outcome are here.
On March 2nd, Ms. Clinton spoke in a closed-to-the-public event at her alma mater Wellesley College, and according to the Boston Globe’s report based upon twitters, was asked “What would you change about your campaign?” and Clinton replied, “I’d win.” Many of the reader-comments there were published only as “This comment has been blocked.” However, that same report was also republished at Political Wire, and the reader-comments there were unedited and were overwhelmingly attacking Donald Trump as having stolen the election, and Vladimir Putin as having been behind it. The most popular reader-response (to her saying “I’d win”) was “If you look at it the right way, she DID.” Her 2,868,519 popular-vote margin was considered the ‘right way’ to evaluate her electoral performance. Almost none criticized Ms. Clinton, either substantively or even just tactically, such as by wondering why she had been campaigning in California and other states that weren’t even at all in contention. The commonest assumption (other than that nationwide popular votes should have decided the victor and California’s voters should have determined the next President even if she lost the rest of the national electorate) appeared to be that somehow Putin did something that had swayed the 77,744 voters in the closest three Trump-won states (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania) who became Trump’s crucial victory-margin in the closest vote-count states for his side that would need to have been reversed in order for Clinton to have been able to win the Electoral College and thus the election.
On March 1st, UK’s Daily Mail headlined and opened:
• Obama’s goal is to oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment, a family friend tells DailyMail.com
• Jarrett has moved into the 8,200-square-foot, $5.3-million Kaloroma mansion to work closely with the former president and Michelle Obama
• Jarrett lived in the White House, dined with the Obamas, and helped shape his domestic and foreign policies
• Obama cannot use his West End office, a post-presidency perk, for political purposes
• ‘He’s coming. And he’s ready to roll.’ former Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday about the former president’s reentry into the political scene
So, Obama’s goal now is for Mike Pence to replace Donald Trump.
