>I think you misinterpreted what he was suggesting - it is meaningless to say that Hillary won the popular vote because neither party were trying to win the popular vote - you win the presidency by winning the electoral college.

This is a non-sequitur. Whether or not that metric (popular vote) has a bearing on the results of presidential election is irrelevant to the statement of whether he won in that metric.

Furthermore, it's counter-productive to the discussion to preface a comment with a politically charged comment (trump and some of his supporters legitimately believes he got more popular vote than clinton, despite evidence to the contrary), then backpedal on that statement by adding a bunch of qualifiers.

You don't win a metric.

Maybe with a definition that you can only "win" a competition that was agreed upon ahead of time. However, a quick search on hn shows that "win" colloquially also can mean beating everyone else at some metric (or in some cases, on a subjective basis). eg.

"Chrome won" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14420972, despite the lack of an actual competition for internet browser market share

"Linux and open source have won, get over it" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23673867

"Teenage Engineering has won over kids and professionals with a synthesizer" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20527069