How the Electoral College Actually Works
538 electors. 270 to win. Here's the machinery behind every presidential race — and why the popular vote and the outcome can diverge.
The United States does not elect its president by a single national vote. It elects 538 electors, and whoever wins a majority of them — 270 — wins the White House.
Where the 538 comes from
Each state gets electors equal to its congressional delegation: one per House member plus two per senator. That ranges from 54 in California down to 3 in the smallest states. The District of Columbia gets 3 as well, courtesy of the 23rd Amendment.
Winner-take-all (mostly)
Forty-eight states and D.C. award all of their electors to whoever wins the state's popular vote. Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions: they hand two electors to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each congressional district, which is why you'll occasionally see a single elector "split" from an otherwise red or blue state.
Why the map matters more than the margin
Because most states are winner-take-all, running up the score in a state you were always going to win adds nothing to your electoral total. That's the entire logic of the battleground map: a few closely divided states end up deciding the presidency, and the national popular vote is, constitutionally, a footnote.
If nobody hits 270
The race goes to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation casts a single vote. It has happened before — in 1800 and 1824 — and it remains the constitutional backstop for a tied or fractured result.