Trump’s victory margin smaller than total Stein votes in key swing states

by Brooke Seipel - 12/01/16 3:43 PM ET

In two key states that President-elect Donald Trump won, his margin of victory was smaller than the total number of votes for Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

{mosads}In Michigan, Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes, while Stein got 51,463 votes, according to current totals on the state’s official website.

And in Wisconsin, Trump’s margin over Clinton was 22,177, while Stein garnered 31,006 votes.

In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, Stein’s total of 49,485 votes was just slightly smaller than Trump’s victory margin of 67,416 votes, according to the state’s latest numbers.

The margins were first noted by Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman, who on Thursday tweeted that Stein’s total votes were greater than the margin of Trump’s victory in all three states. The votes in Pennsylvania have since changed again, and Trump’s margin is now larger than the total vote for Stein.

Only Michigan has certified its vote, so totals in the other two states may still be adjusted.

Stein has filed for a recount in all three states, and the Clinton campaign’s general counsel indicated her team would participate in the recounts. Trump has slammed the effort as a “scam” and filed an objection to the Michigan recount.

Stein herself has acknowledged she doesn’t expect recounts to change the election results but called them a matter of election integrity.

Critics have blamed Stein’s support for Trump’s win, saying that Green Party backers should have preferred Clinton over Trump. The complaints echo arguments made after Democrat Al Gore’s loss to Republican George Bush in the 2000 election, when Green Party candidate Ralph Nader was targeted for criticism after a razor tight finish in Florida.

Stein supporters have countered that many of her voters would never have supported the Democratic nominee and should not have felt compelled to decide between just two candidates.

Trump won the Electoral College race with 306 electoral votes. Pennsylvania was worth 20 electoral votes, Michigan 16 and Wisconsin 10. If Clinton had won all three, she would have won the election.

On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported Clinton’s lead over Trump in the popular vote had grown to 2.3 million.

Clinton’s total was 64,874,143, or 48.1 percent of the vote, to Trump’s 62,516,883, or 46.4 percent.

Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson received 4,442,771 votes, or 3.3 percent of the vote, and Stein got 1,420,351 votes, or 1.1 percent.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story, based on now-outdated vote totals, mischaracterized Trump’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania. It is larger than the total number of Stein votes in the state

– Updated at 12:43 p.m. on Friday.

Tags Al Gore Donald Trump Gary Johnson Hillary Clinton