Hillary Clinton gets 2.7 million lead in the popular vote

The Democrat could end up with more votes than Obama in 2012

Ms Clinton suffered a crushing defeat in the electoral college, but is on track for a mind-bending victory in the popular vote (Getty)

Hillary Clinton has 2.7 million more votes than Donald Trump, despite losing the presidential election, and the number is expected to rise.

Ms Clinton is on track to get more votes than president Barack Obama did in 2012. He won 65.9 million, and she is only about 400,000 votes behind him.

The votes are being tallied by David Wasserman for the Cook Political Report. Votes are still streaming in from states like California, New York and Washington due to late counting of mail-in and absentee ballots.

Mr Trump swept to victory thanks to the centuries-old electoral college system, which distributes electoral votes around states and the candidate who wins in each state gets all of those votes.

Larger states - like Pennsylvania with 20 electoral college votes and Michigan with 16 votes - went to Mr Trump.

The 538 electoral college voters are convening in their respective states on 19 December to officially declare Mr Trump as president.

At least seven of them, however, will be “faithless electors” and stage a protest vote for Ms Clinton or another Republican.

On 8 November, Ms Clinton won just 232 votes - a majority of 270 is needed - while Mr Trump reached 306.

His entourage has filed a lawsuit to block a request for a vote recount in Michigan, after successful requests were granted in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

All three states were crucial battlegrounds on 8 November and went to Mr Trump with a small margin of victory. The recount started in Wisconsin at midday on Monday 4 December.

Mr Trump has been irked by his loss in the popular count, and he said he would have won it if he had campaigned harder in a smaller number of states.