The New York Times led with “VICTORY! Glorious Result Yesterday.” Lincoln won an overwhelming victory in the Electoral College, with 212 to 21. He won the popular vote, nationwide, with a margin of slightly more than 400,000 votes. But perhaps most satisfying of all, Lincoln won the “soldier vote,” the votes made in army camps, by a whopping 116,887 to 33,748. McClellan had once been the commanding general of many of these soldiers, but they chose to go with the man from Illinois.