Donald Trump shares a laugh on the campaign trail
Donald Trump shares a laugh on the campaign trailReuters

With the Electoral College having officially voted on Monday for Donald Trump for President of the United States, the explanation behind Hilary Clinton's popular-vote "victory" is now clear.

Indeed, Clinton did win more votes across the United States by the large margin of 2.8 million. Trump garnered close to 63 million votes, while Clinton won nearly 65.8 million. However, here's the rub: The numbers show that this entire lead, and then some, came from only one state: California.

In fact, most remarkably, the city of Los Angeles alone gave Clinton 1.69 million votes more than it gave Trump.

The Golden State, long noted for its more progressive and liberal tendencies than the rest of the Union, voted overwhelmingly for Hilary Clinton. She received 61.73% of the vote there, compared to just a smidgeon over half that for Trump – 31.62%. In real numbers, slightly more than 4.48 million Californians voted for Trump, while a whopping 8.75 million-plus people voted there for Clinton.

In the other 49 states, Trump actually won the popular vote by a significant 1.4 million margin. In fact, some bemusedly say that California is practically a country unto itself...

These results can be honed down even more: If Clinton's lead in just four California cities and counties were ignored, the national popular vote would have been practically tied even when taking the rest of California into account.

Specifically, Alameda County gave Clinton 418,000 more votes, Santa Clara gave her 367,000 more, and the city of San Francisco provided a margin of 308,000. Together with the 1.69 million of Los Angeles, these four alone gave Clinton nearly 2.8 million more votes – almost precisely the margin by which she won the national vote!

The above numbers, of course, do not even take into account the other problematic aspects of the California vote, which essentially allows non-citizens and illegal immigrants - of whom there are a significant amount in the state - to vote.

Thus, the Electoral College can be said to have done its job: Ensuring that a wide margin of victory in one narrow geographical area not override the results in the rest of the country.