Electoral College

A system used in the United States to elect a president every 4 years

Each state has a specific number of “electors” which is the sum of the number of house representatives and the number of senators. Example: California has 53 representatives in the house and 2 senators, which means they get 55 electoral votes, (since the number of representatives in the House is determined by population size; California would have more electoral votes than Utah because its population is larger).

Each state holds elections and the candidate who receives the most votes in a state receives the electoral votes from that state. Example: If the majority of Californians vote for a democratic candidate, then the democratic candidate receives 55 electoral votes.

In total there are 538 electoral votes from all the states, meaning that a presidential candidate needs 270 (50.1%) electoral votes to be elected.

In comparison, the popular vote is the total number of people that voted for a candidate.

Therefore it is possible for a candidate to receive the majority in the popular vote, but still lose the election, because the election is determined by electoral votes only.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Representatives-United-States-government#ref283100.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-legislative-branch/#:~:text=The%20House%20has%20several%20powers,of%20an%20Electoral%20College%20tie.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Connecticut-Compromise.