It is the fifth time a candidate has failed to achieve victory, despite winning the popular vote in American presidential elections.
As the electoral votes reached 270 to give Donald Trump the edge as America’s next president in the early hours of Wednesday morning, it has been revealed that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.
Read: Canada's Immigration Site Crashes During U.S. Election
The Democratic presidential candidate accumulated 59,299,381 votes nationwide against Trump’s 59,135,740.
The results make Clinton the fifth presidential contender to win the popular vote but lose the election.
The last time it happened Al Gore narrowly lost to George W. Bush. Gore had won the popular vote, but Bush won the White House by a margin of just five electoral votes.
Read: The World Reacts to Trump's Victory
Neither Trump nor Clinton received more than 50 percent of the vote.
Prior to Gore, it had happened to Grover Cleveland in 1888 after he lost to Benjamin Harrison; Rutherford B. Hayes winning the Oval Office from Samuel Tilden in 1876; and John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson in 1824.
Watch: Mom Photographs Sleeping Daughter, 5, Clutching Hillary Clinton Action Figure
