Hillary Clinton now leads President-elect Donald Trump by more than 1.72 million popular votes. That gives Clinton a 1.3 percentage point lead, with millions of votes still to be counted. While it's certainly not unprecedented for a candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election, The New York Times reports that a losing candidate hasn't claimed a lead this big since the 1876 presidential race between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden.
That election was "one of the most disputed presidential elections in American history," 270 to Win writes. Tilden claimed the popular vote, winning by a margin of more than 264,000 votes. But he ultimately lost the election by just one electoral vote — and that's where matters got contentious.
Before 20 disputed electoral votes were accounted for, Tilden led Hayes with 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165. Though Tilden seemed to have won Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, questions of voting fairness arose and a recount was ordered. Tilden needed just one of the 20 electoral votes to win the election, but Hayes ended up sweeping all the disputed electoral votes to win the White House.
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To quell Democrats' outrage, Republicans reportedly "agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction," 270 to Win said. Hayes became the United States' 19th president in March 1877.
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