WASHINGTON _ Hillary Clinton famously lost to Donald Trump in 2016 despite winning more votes overall because she underperformed in key states in the Electoral College.
But a new study released Wednesday quantifies exactly how many votes the former Democratic presidential nominee "wasted" _ and warns Democrats that they might be doomed to a similar fate in the 2020 general election if they don't focus on the most important states.
About 17% of Clinton's total vote total from the 2016 election was "wasted" in states where she ran up huge margins of victory, according to a study conducted by Third Way, a center-left political and policy think tank. That percentage was higher than the share of wasted votes for Trump that year and some other recent presidential candidates in tight races.
