Clinton's substantial popular-vote victory

Hillary Clinton didn’t just win the popular vote. She won it by a substantial margin.

By the time all the ballots are counted, she seems likely to be ahead by more than 2 million votes and more than 1.5 percentage points, according to my Times colleague Nate Cohn. She will have won by a wider percentage margin than not only Al Gore in 2000 but also Richard Nixon in 1968 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.

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These comparisons — and I know they’re painful for many people to hear — highlight a dilemma for the suddenly bereft Democratic Party.

The soul-searching about the Democrats’ loss of the white working class is just beginning, as it should. Presidential races aren’t won and lost on the national popular vote, nor is control of the House and Senate. None of that is going to change, and Democrats need to find ways to win in the world that exists, rather than the more small-d democratic world that many of us would prefer.

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