Claim: Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

The United States presidential election of 2016 was the 58th quadrennial American presidential election , held on Tuesday , November 8 , 2016 . The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana Governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senator from Virginia Tim Kaine . Trump took office as the 45th President , and Pence as the 48th Vice President , on January 20 , 2017 . Concurrent with the presidential election , Senate , House , and many gubernatorial and state and local elections were also held on November 8 .   Voters selected members of the Electoral College in each state , in most cases by `` winner-takes-all '' plurality ; those state electors in turn voted for a new president and vice president on December 19 , 2016 . While Clinton received about million more votes nationwide , a margin of % , Trump won 30 states worth a total of 306 electors , or 57 % of the 538 available . He won the perennial swing states of Florida , North Carolina , Ohio , and Iowa , as well as Clinton 's `` blue wall '' states of Michigan , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin , which had been Democratic strongholds in presidential elections for decades . Leading up to the election , a Trump victory was considered unlikely by almost all media forecasts .   In the Electoral College vote on December 19 , seven electors voted against their pledged candidates : two against Trump and five against Clinton . A further three electors attempted to vote against Clinton but were replaced or forced to vote again . Ultimately , Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton garnered 227 , while Colin Powell won three , and John Kasich , Ron Paul , Bernie Sanders , and Faith Spotted Eagle each received one .   Trump is the fifth person in U.S. history to become president while losing the nationwide popular vote . He is the first president without any prior experience in public service or the military , as well as the wealthiest and the oldest at inauguration , while Clinton was the first woman to be the presidential nominee of a major party and the first woman to win the popular vote .   This was the first time since the 1984 re-election of Ronald Reagan that Wisconsin voted for a Republican , and the first time since 1988 that the Republican nominee won the states of Pennsylvania and Michigan , as well as Maine 's second congressional district . It was also the first time since the 1828 election of Andrew Jackson that an electoral vote split occurred in Maine .   On January 6 , 2017 , the United States government 's intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections . A joint U.S. intelligence review stated with high confidence that `` Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election . Russia 's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process , denigrate Secretary Clinton , and harm her electability and potential presidency . '' Investigations about potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials were started by the FBI , the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee . Donald Trump has criticized these conclusions by citing a lack of evidence , calling it a `` hoax '' and `` fake news , '' stating in a tweet : `` The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax , when will this taxpayer funded charade end ? ''