Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich mocked Hillary Clinton on Wednesday for failing to run a campaign focused on winning a majority of electoral votes, and said Clinton, the “so-called professional” in the race, lost sight of the Electoral College and seemed instead to focus on running up the popular vote.
“Ironically, the amateur understood the Electoral College mattered, the so-called professional forgot the Electoral College mattered, and that’s what mattered,” Gingrich said on Fox News.
Gingrich noted that Democrats were able to win the nationwide popular vote over President-elect Trump because of California. “He got killed in California because we didn’t campaign there,” he said.
Gingrich said Trump had a 1.2 million vote majority if California is excluded, but other election tallies show his lead would be about half of that, or 600,000 votes. Clinton got 3.4 million more votes than Trump in California.
“We got beaten badly in the biggest state. It didn’t matter,” Gingrich said. “That’s not how you pick the presidency. … It’s called winning the game.”
Gingrich said the Democrats “live in a delusional world, that’s why they lost the election. They decided to stay with the delusion.”
He compared it to a football game in a which a team might gain more yards, but still not put up enough points to win. “This is the football season, the team can have more yards and lose the game,” he said. “What matters is how many points you put on the board.”
Trump tweeted early Wednesday morning that he is not worried that he lost the popular vote to Clinton by more than 2.8 million votes. “Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!”
He wrote that he would have campaigned differently if the election was based on the popular vote. “I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote — but would campaign differently.”
