How is the president elected?
To win their respective offices, candidates for the offices of the president and vice president must win an absolute majority of the vote in the Electoral College. Each state is allocated a set of electors, which is the sum of the number of seats in the House of Representatives and the seats in the Senate (always two) for that state. Electoral votes in Washington, D.C., are based on population but cannot be larger than the electoral votes of the smallest state. Thus, Washington, D.C., gets three electoral votes. US territories are not entitled to any electoral votes. The Electoral College has a total of 538 electors, so a majority requires at least 270 votes.
Millions of Americans have cast their ballots on Election Day today, after a record number of Americans voted early in the 2024 presidential election. But it's not the popular vote that decides the presidency — it's the outcome of the Electoral College.
There are 538 votes in the Electoral College and it takes 270 — a majority — to win the presidency.
The race between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris will likely come down to a handful of battleground states where voters are closely divided. Of those, Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes at stake, with 19, followed by North Carolina and Georgia with 16 each. Michigan has 15, Arizona has 11, Wisconsin has 10, and Nevada has 6.
It's a winner-take-all system in most states, meaning the candidate who comes out ahead gets all of the state's Electoral College votes. Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that allow their electoral votes to be split.
How many Electoral College votes does each state have?
The number of Electoral College votes each state gets is equal to its total number of U.S. senators and representatives in Congress. This means each state gets at least three, while states with larger populations get more. The District of Columbia also gets three, although it has no voting members in Congress.
Number of electoral votes by state
Electoral votes for the 2024 election are allocated to states based on the 2020 Census. Every state gets at least three votes: one for each senator, and one for each congressional district. The District of Columbia also gets three votes. There are 538 electoral votes in total, with a majority of 270 needed to elect a president
All electoral votes go to the overall winner of the statewide popular vote, except in Maine and Nebraska where electoral votes are based on the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district and two additional votes go to the winner of the statewide popular vote.
States may gain or lose electoral votes as the population shifts. In the congressional redistricting that followed the 2020 U.S. Census, six states picked up at least one additional House seat — and thus an extra electoral vote — while seven states lost one.
Which state has the most electoral votes?
California, the most populous state in the nation, has 54 electoral votes. With a population of over 39.5 million people, according to the 2020 Census, that means California has one elector for every 732,189 residents.
Texas is next, with 40 electoral votes, followed by Florida with 30 and New York with 28.
Which state has the least electoral votes?
Six states with the smallest populations have three electoral votes each: Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. Washington, D.C., also gets three. In Wyoming, whose population of about 576,850 is the nation's smallest, that works out to one elector for every 182,283 residents.
Which state has gained the most electoral votes?
Texas gained two electoral votes in 2024, giving it a total of 40 in this year's presidential race, up from 38 in the 2020 election.
Five other states — Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon — gained one electoral vote each.
Which state has lost the most electoral votes?
Seven states lost an electoral vote in 2024: California, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Electoral votes for the 2024 election are allocated to states based on the 2020 Census.
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