In most states, the winner of the popular vote gets all of the electoral votes too.
In all states but Nebraska and Maine, the winner of the popular vote gets all of that state's electoral votes. (Technically, the slate of electors pledged to the winning candidate is elected by the popular vote and these people go on to cast the state's electoral vote. )
By popular vote.
"winner-take-all" refers to the prevailing custom that states use to allocate electoral votes. The electors run as a slate and the presidential candidate with the most popular votes gets all of his electors elected and so gets all of the states electoral votes even if he won by only a narrow margin.
NewYork
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, receiving about 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump. However, Donald Trump won the Electoral College and thus became President.
In most states, the winner of the popular vote receives all of the electoral votes. However, two states, Nebraska and Maine, allocate their electoral votes proportionally based on the winner of each congressional district and the state's overall popular vote.
In Nebraska and Maine, whoever gets the most popular votes in each congressional district gets one vote. The other two votes per state go to whoever gets the most popular votes in the whole state. In each of the other 48 states and in D.C., whoever gets the most popular votes gets 100% of the electoral votes.
No, most states just declare the person with the plurality of votes (more than anyone else, but not necessarily a majority) the winner. In Louisiana, however, if no one gets a majority of the votes, there is a "run-off election" between the two candidates with the highest and second-highest vote totals.
Since the election of 1824, most states have appointed their electors on a winner-take-all basis, based on the statewide popular vote on Election Day. Maine and Nebraska are the only two current exceptions, as both states use the congressional district method. In a winner-take-all state, all of the state's Electoral votes go to whichever candidate receives a majority of the popular vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate). Maine and Nebraska use the "congressional district method", selecting one elector within each congressional district by popular vote and awarding two electors by a statewide popular vote.
It ensures that small staes have a voice in choosing the president. I know this because I just did it, in Apex.
direct popular election plan
The candidate who gets the most popular votes wins that state's electoral votes in every state but Maine and Nebraska. In these states, the winner of each congressional district in the state gets one vote and the other two go to the overall winner. Winning the popular vote is a matter of convincing the voters in that state that you will do more them than will your opponent to deal with the matters that concern them. A position that wins votes in one state may lose votes in another, so campaign strategists try to figure out what positions will produce the most electoral votes.