The answer usually comes as a surprise to most people. There are, in fact, several different ways to do the math, and they often lead to very different outcomes. The electoral math used in the United States election process counts votes using a system known as plurality voting. Now in an election where there are just two candidates, that system works just fine. It's when there are three or more candidates that problems can arise.
Plurality voting can result in the election of a candidate whom almost two-thirds of voters detest.
Judging by the comments immediately after the election, the majority of Democrat and Republican voters were strongly opposed to Reform Party candidate Ventura moving into the Governor's mansion. In which case, he won not because the majority of voters chose him, but because plurality voting effectively thwarted the will of the people. Had the voters been able to vote in such a way that, if their preferred candidate were not going to win, their preference between the remaining two could be counted, the outcome could have been quite different. For instance, several countries, among them Australia, the Irish Republic, and Northern Ireland, use a system called single transferable vote. Introduced by Thomas Hare in England in the 1850s, this system takes account of the entire range of preferences each voter has for the candidates.