One thing to keep in mind is that the U.S. election isn't one election, it's a set of 50 elections run by bodies who are sovereign in their elections, who then come together to vote for a few specific roles (President and Vice President).

This is something a lot of people don't fully understand, because most politics that gets widely reported characterizes the U.S. as a single top-down government, but that's not actually the case with our Federal system.