electoral votes
College decision points
Electoral votes are the votes cast by electors in the Electoral College to choose the president and vice president of the United States.
Each state receives electoral votes equal to its total congressional representation—senators plus representatives.
In most states, the candidate winning the popular vote receives all that state's electoral votes.
A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency: The election hinged on electoral votes from swing states.
- battleground statesElectorally competitive regions
- red statesRepublican-voting regions
- blue statesReliably liberal electoral regions
- split ticketBallot crossing party lines
- Constitutional ConventionDocument-drafting assembly of founders
state sovereignty · apportionment · campaign strategy · census data · congressional districts · swing states · certification · Federalist Papers · inauguration · Supreme Court rulings · demographic shifts · recounts · gerrymandering · minority representation · federal mandates · polling stations · primary elections · rural-urban divide
- electionsballot, ballots, candidates, polls, primary
- Presidential Electionsballot, ballot box, polls, incumbent, challenger
- 1972 ElectionNixon, McGovern, Watergate, landslide, reelection
- 2000 ElectionFlorida recount, hanging chads, Bush v. Gore, Al Gore, George W. Bush
- election mapsred states, blue states, swing states, battleground states, purple states
- Political Resourcesdonations, donors, funding, money, volunteers
electoral votespopular vote
Total of citizen votes
direct vote · direct democracy · ballot count · voter turnout · proportional representation
electoral votesdirect democracy
Voters decide policy personally
pure democracy · direct election · popular sovereignty · plebiscite · referendum
electoral, votes, elect, vote, election, elected, electing, elector, electors