Since 1824, when the popular vote was first used to determine the overall winner in U.S. presidential elections, the share of the population who participate in these elections has gradually increased. Despite this increase, participation has never reached half of the total population; partly due to the share of the population below the voting age of eighteen, but also as many potential voters above the age of eighteen do not take part, or are ineligible to vote. For example, in the 2016 election, approximately twenty million U.S. adults were ineligible to vote, while over 94 million simply did not participate; in this election, Donald Trump won the electoral college with 63 million votes, which means that 19.4 percent of the total U.S. population (or 27.3 percent of eligible voters) voted for the winning candidate. Development throughout history While the figures for the 2016 election may appear low, over 42 percent of the total population participated in this election, which was the third highest participation rate ever recorded (after the 2008 and 2020 elections). In the first election decided by a popular vote in 1824, only 350 thousand votes were cast from a total population of 10.6 million, although this increased to over four million votes by the 1856 election, as restrictions that applied to non-property holding white males were gradually lifted. Participation levels then dropped during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, as those who lived in Confederate states could not vote in 1864, and many white southerners were restricted or discouraged in the following election. Although universal suffrage was granted to black males in the wake of the Civil War, the majority of black Americans lived in the southern states, where lawmakers introduced Jim Crow laws in the late 1800s to suppress and disenfranchise the black vote, as well as poor white voters. The next major milestone was the introduction of women's suffrage in 1920, which saw voter participation increase by seven million votes (or seven percent) between the 1916 and 1920 elections. Between the 1910s and 1970s, the Great Migration saw many black Americans move away from the south to northern and western states, where they faced fewer obstacles when voting and greater economic mobility. This period of black migration began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, during which time many Jim Crow laws were repealed in the south, through legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Female participation also grew gradually, and has exceeded male voting participation in all elections since the 1980s. The minimum voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in all states in 1971, although this seemingly had a minimal impact on the short-term trajectory of voter participation. Recent elections The 1992 election was the first in which more than one hundred million votes were cast, which was almost 41 percent of the total population. All elections since 2004 have also had more than one hundred million votes cast, which has again been more than forty percent of the total population. Another key factor in the increase in voter participation is the fact that people are living longer than ever before, and that those aged 65 and over have had the highest turnout levels since 1992. While some figures may be subject to change, the 2020 election set new records for voter turnout. Despite the global coronavirus pandemic, which many thought could cause the lowest turnout in decades, a record number of voters cast their ballots early or by mail, setting a new record of votes just shy of 160 million. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden and Donald Trump received 81.3 million and 74.2 million votes respectively, both beating Barack Obama's previous record of 69.3 million ballots in 2008. 2024 then saw a decline in the number of votes cast, with over three million fewer votes than in 2020.

Every four years in the United States, the electoral college system is used to determine the winner of the presidential election. In this system, each state has a fixed number of electors based on their population size, and (generally speaking) these electors then vote for their candidate with the most popular votes within their state or district. Since 1964, there have been 538 electoral votes available for presidential candidates, who need a minimum of 270 votes to win the election. Because of this system, candidates do not have to win over fifty percent of the popular votes across the country, but just win in enough states to receive a total of 270 electoral college votes. Popular results From 1789 until 1820, there was no popular vote, and the President was then chosen only by the electors from each state. George Washington was unanimously voted for by the electorate, receiving one hundred percent of the votes in both elections. From 1824, a popular vote has been conducted among American citizens (with varying levels of access for women, Blacks, and poor voters), to help electors in each state decide who to vote for (although the 1824 winner was chosen by the House of Representatives, as no candidate received over fifty percent of electoral votes). Since 1924, the difference in the share of both votes has varied, with several candidates receiving over 90 percent of the electoral votes while only receiving between fifty and sixty percent of the popular vote. The highest difference was for Ronald Reagan in 1980, where he received just 50.4 percent of the popular vote, but 90.9 percent of the electoral votes. Unpopular winners Since 1824, there have been 51 elections, and in 19 of these the winner did not receive over fifty percent of the popular vote. In the majority of these cases, the winner did receive a plurality of the votes, however there have been five instances where the winner of the electoral college vote lost the popular vote to another candidate. The most recent examples of this were in 2000, when George W. Bush received roughly half a million fewer votes than Al Gore, and in 2016, where Hillary Clinton won approximately three million more votes than Donald Trump.

In the 1824 U.S presidential election, which was the first where a popular vote was used to determine the overall winner, approximately three percent of the U.S. population voted in the election, while only one percent actually voted for the winner. Over the following decades, restrictions that prevented non-property owning males from voting were gradually repealed, and almost all white men over the age of 21 could vote by the 1856 election. The next major development was the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution following the American Civil War, which granted suffrage to all male citizens of voting age, regardless of race. Turnout then grew to almost twenty percent at the turn of the century, however Jim Crow laws played a large part in keeping these numbers lower than they potentially could have been, by disenfranchising black communities in the south and undoing much of the progress made during the Reconstruction Era. Extension of voting rights Female suffrage, granted to women in 1920, was responsible for the largest participation increase between any two elections in U.S. history. Between the 1916 and 1920 elections, overall turnout increased by almost seven percent, and it continued to grow to 38 percent by the 1940 election; largely due to the growth in female participation over time. Following a slight reduction during the Second World War and 1948 elections, turnout remained at between 36 and forty percent from the 1950s until the 1990s. Between these decades, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in 1971 respectively re-enfranchised many black voters in the south and reduced the voting age in all states from 21 to 18 years old. Participation among female voters has also exceeded male participation in all elections since 1980. Recent trends The 1992 election was the first where more than forty percent of the total population cast ballots, and turnout has been above forty percent in all presidential elections since 2004. Along with the extension of voting rights, the largest impact on voter turnout has been the increase in life expectancy throughout the centuries, almost doubling in the past 150 years. As the overall average age has risen, so too has the share of the total population who are eligible to vote, and older voters have had the highest turnout rates since the 1980s. Another factor is increased political involvement among ethnic minorities; while white voters have traditionally had the highest turnout rates in presidential elections, black voters turnout has exceeded the national average since 2008. Asian and Hispanic voter turnouts have also increased in the past twenty years, with the growing Hispanic vote in southern and border states expected to cause a major shift in U.S. politics in the coming decades.

In terms of the most popular presidents, in the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to have been elected by more than one fifth of the total population. Three presidents were elected by more than 22 percent of the total population, respectively Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, Richard Nixon in 1972 and Barack Obama in 2008, while Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984 saw him become the only president in U.S. history to win with the support of more than 23 percent of the total population. While the vote count for the 2020 election is still to be finalized, President-elect Joe Biden has already received 81.28 million votes as of December 02, which would also translate to over 24.5 percent of the total population, and will likely near 25 percent by the end of the counting process.

With Abraham Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presidential election, the Republican Party cemented its position as one of the two major political parties in the United States. Since 1860, candidates from both parties have faced one another in 41 elections, with the Republican candidate winning 24 elections, to the Democrats' 17. The share of electoral college votes is often very different from the share of the popular vote received by each candidate in the elections, as the popular vote differences tend to be much smaller. Electoral college system In the U.S., the electoral college system is used to elect the president. For most states, this means that the most popular candidate in each state then receives that state's allocation of electoral votes (which is determined by the state's population). In the majority of elections, the margin of electoral votes has been over thirty percent between the two major party candidates, and there were even some cases where the winner received over ninety percent more electoral votes than the runner-up. Biggest winners The largest margins for the Republican Party occurred in the aftermath of the American Civil War, in the pre-Depression era of the 1920s, with Eisenhower after the Second World War, and then again with the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush campaigns in the 1970s and 80s. For the Democratic Party, the largest victories occurred during the First and Second World Wars, and for Lindon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton in the second half of the 20th century. In the past six elections, the results of the electoral college vote have been relatively close, compared with the preceding hundred years; George W. Bush's victories were by less than seven percent, Obama's victories were larger (by around thirty percent), and in the most recent elections involving Donald Trump he both won and lost by roughly 14 percent.

Since 1852, the U.S. presidential election has been contested in California 44 times, with Californians successfully voting for the winning candidate on 35 occasions, giving an overall success rate of 80 percent. California has awarded the majority of its electoral votes to the Republican Party in 23 elections, the Democratic Party in 20 elections, and the only year when a third-party candidate won a majority was in 1912, where Theodore Roosevelt won the state while campaigning as the Progressive Party's nominee. Between 1952 and 1988, there was only one election that was not won by the Republican candidate, while all elections since 1992 have been won by the Democratic nominee. In the 2024 election, Oakland-born Vice President Kamala Harris ran as the Democratic nominee, and comfortably won her home state but lost the nationwide vote. Californian under-representation? California was admitted to the union in 1850, and was granted just four electoral votes in its first three presidential elections. In the past two centuries, California's population has grown rapidly, largely due to a positive net migration rate from within the U.S. and abroad. Today, it has the highest population of any state in the U.S, with almost forty million people, and has therefore been designated 54 electoral votes; the most of any state. Although California has been allocated around ten percent of the total electoral votes on offer nationwide, The Golden State is home to roughly twelve percent of the total U.S. population, therefore a number closer to 62 electoral votes would be more proportional to the U.S. population distribution. Despite this, California's total allocation was reduced to 54 in the 2024 election. Native Californians As of 2020, Richard Nixon is the only native Californian to have been elected to the presidency, having won the election in 1968 and 1972. California also voted for Nixon in the 1960 election, although John F. Kennedy was the overall winner. Two other U.S. Presidents had declared California as their home state; they were Herbert Hoover, who won the 1928 election, and Ronald Reagan, who won in 1980 and 1984 respectively. While states generally support candidates who were born or reside there, Californian candidates have failed to carry their home state or state of birth in four U.S. presidential elections, these were; John C. Frémont in 1854 (who actually came third in California), Herbert Hoover in 1932, and Adlai Stevenson in both the 1952 and 1956 elections.

The current two-party system in the United States, dominated by the Democratic and Republican parties, has been in place since the 1860 election. Long term trends show that results tend to be cyclical, with both parties having winning streaks of the nationwide popular vote in four (or more) elections in a row. For the Republican Party, these extended streaks came around the Civil War and at the turn of the 20th century. For the Democrats, these streaks came around the late-1800s, the Depression and WWII era, and in the early 2000s. However, it should be noted that there was a major political realignment between the parties during the 20th century, with the Democrats eventually becoming the more fiscally and socially progressive party, while the Republicans became more fiscally liberal and socially conservative, particularly after the Second World War. In recent decades, the Democratic Party has won the popular vote in seven of the nine presidential elections since 1992, although the U.S. electoral college system means that Republicans still won the presidency in four of these nine elections, despite receiving fewer votes in both 2000 and 2016.

Throughout United States history, voter turnout among the voting eligible population has varied, ranging from below twelve percent in uncontested elections, to 83 percent in the 1876 election. In early years, turnout in presidential elections was relatively low, as the popular vote was not used in every state to decide who electors would vote for. When this was changed in the 1824 election, turnout increased dramatically, and generally fluctuated between seventy and eighty percent during the second half of the nineteenth century. Until the 1840 and 1842 elections, midterm elections also had a higher turnout rate than their corresponding presidential elections, although this trend has been reversed since these years.

Declining turnout in the twentieth century An increase in voting rights, particularly for black males in 1870 and for women in 1920, has meant that the share of the total population who are legally eligible to vote has increased significantly; yet, as the number of people eligible to vote increased, the turnout rate generally decreased. Following enfranchisement, it would take over fifty years before the female voter turnout would reach the same level as males, and over 150 years before black voters would have a similar turnout rate to whites. A large part of this was simply the lack of a voting tradition among these voter bases; however, the Supreme Court and lawmakers across several states (especially in the south) created obstacles for black voters and actively enforced policies and practices that disenfranchised black voter participation. These practices were in place from the end of the Reconstruction era (1876) until the the Voting Rights Act of 1965 legally removed and prohibited many of these obstacles; nonetheless, people of color continue to be disproportionally affected by voting restrictions to this day.

Recent decades In 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the minimum voting age in most states from 21 to 18 years old, which greatly contributed to the six and eight percent reductions in voter turnout in the 1972 and 1974 elections respectively, highlighting a distinct correlation between age and voter participation. Overall turnout remained below sixty percent from the 1970s until the 2004 election, and around forty percent in the corresponding midterms. In recent elections, increased political involvement among younger voters and those from ethnic minority backgrounds has seen these numbers rise, with turnout in the 2018 midterms reaching fifty percent. This was the highest midterm turnout in over one hundred years, leading many at the time to predict that the 2020 election would see one of the largest and most diverse voter turnouts in the past century, although these predictions then reversed with the arival of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, 2020 did prove to have the highest turnout in any presidential election since 1900; largely as a result of mail-in voting, improved access to early voting, and increased activism among grassroots organizations promoting voter registration.

Since 1964, voter turnout rates in U.S. presidential elections have generally fluctuated across all age groups, falling to a national low in 1996, before rising again in the past two decades. Since 1988, there has been a direct correlation with voter participation and age, as people become more likely to vote as they get older. Participation among eligible voters under the age of 25 is the lowest of all age groups, and in the 1996 and 2000 elections, fewer than one third of eligible voters under the age of 25 participated, compared with more than two thirds of voters over 65 years.

Throughout U.S. history, the difference in the proportion of electoral votes has often been several times larger than the difference in the popular vote. For example, in the 1980s Ronald Reagan received roughly nine and eighteen percent more popular votes than his respective candidates, however he then received roughly seventy percent more electoral votes than both candidates. There are many critics of the electoral college system, whose main argument is that the most popular candidate is not always elected president, while its defenders argue that the system gives proportional representation to all Americans, and prevents candidates from ignoring the interests of those in less-populated states.

The United States uses the electoral college system to elect its presidents, which generally means that the most popular candidate in each state is then given that state's allocation of electoral votes (based on the state's population). Since 1968, there have been 538 electoral votes on offer in each election, meaning that he first candidate to reach 270 electoral votes is declared President. Since 1824, a popular vote has been held among the general public in order to determine the most popular candidate in each state (although women were not granted suffrage until 1920, while black and Native American voters faced widespread voter suppression until the 1960s). Because of the electoral college system, the proportion of popular votes won by a candidate may be very different than the proportion of electoral votes, and this has caused some instances where the candidate with the most electoral votes is declared President of the United States, despite losing the popular vote (such as in 2000 and 2016).

Florida was admitted to the union in 1845, and has taken part in 43 U.S. presidential elections since this time. In these 43 elections, Florida has voted for the overall winner thirty times, giving a success rate of seventy percent. Since 1928, Florida has voted for the winning candidate in 21 out of 24 elections, and is considered a key battleground state in modern elections. Florida has voted for a major party nominee in every election, backing the Republican nominee 17 times, Democrat 25 times, and the only time it did not vote Republican or Democrat was in 1848 when it voted for the Whig Party's Zachary Taylor. Florida did not take part in the 1864 election due to its secession from the Union in the American Civil War, and like most other southern states it primarily voted Democrat until the mid-twentieth century, when it then started leaning more Republican. No U.S. President has ever been born in Florida, or resided there when taking office; although Donald Trump declared himself a resident of Florida in 2019, therefore making it his official home state during the 2020 election. The 2020 election in Florida proved to be a surprise for many, as Donald Trump won the popular vote by a 3.4 percent margin; most polls had favored Biden going into election day, however intensive campaigning and increased Republican support among Cuban Americans has been cited as the reason for Trump's victory in Florida.

Florida's importance

In 1920, Florida's population was fewer than one million people; however it has grown drastically in the past century to almost 22 million people, making Florida the third most populous state in the country. With this population boom, Florida's allocation of electoral votes has surged, from just six in the 1920s, to 29 in recent elections (this is expected to increase to 31 votes in the 2024 election). Unlike the other most populous states, such as California and New York, which are considered safe Democratic states, or Texas, which is considered a safe Republican state, presidential elections in Florida are much more unpredictable. Florida is a southern state, and its majority-white, rural and suburban districts tend to vote in favor of the Republican Party (Republicans have also dominated state elections in recent decades), although, Florida is also home to substantial Hispanic population, and is a popular destination for young workers in the tourism sector and retirees from across the U.S., with these groups considered more likely to vote Democrat. However, the discrepancy between voters of Cuban (58 percent voted Republican) and Puerto Rican (66 percent voted Democrat) origin in the 2020 election shows that these traditional attitudes towards Hispanic voters may need to be re-evaluated.

2000 controversy The 2000 U.S. presidential election is one of the most famous and controversial elections in U.S. history, due to the results from Florida. The election was contested by the Republican Party's George W. Bush and the Democratic Party's Al Gore; by the end of election day, it became clear that Florida's 25 electoral votes would decide the outcome, as neither candidate had surpassed the 270 vote margin needed to win nationwide. While Florida's early results showed Bush in the lead, Gore's share of the results in urban areas then brought their totals close enough to trigger a recount; after a month of recounts and legal proceedings, Bush was eventually declared the winner of Florida by a margin of 537 popular votes (or 0.009 percent). Although Gore did win a plurality of the votes nationwide, Bush had won 271 electoral votes overall, and was named the 43rd President of the United States; this was just one of five elections where the candidate with the most popular votes did not win the election. In the six most recent U.S. presidential elections in Florida, the difference in the share of popular votes between the Republican and Democratic candidates has been just two percent on average.

This statistic presents the voter turnout in the U.S. presidential elections from 1908 to 2012. Voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections in 1908 stood at **** percent. Additional information on voter turnout in the United States presidential elections Despite widespread societal and economic changes voter turnout has generally fluctuated between ** and ** percent. Turnouts above ** percent are rare and have not been witnessed since the middle of the 20th Century when American voter turnout was comparably higher. In the United States voting in presidential elections is not legally mandatory as it is in some countries such as Australia. Therefore, many American voters choose to remain absent from the ballot box every four years. In contrast to mid-term elections, years in which the bi-annual congressional elections take place in the absence of presidential campaigns, presidential elections enjoy a relatively larger degree of public attention. This difference could be seen to reflect a population who perceives the power of the president to be of greater influence than the country’s congressional house. This perception is particularly apparent among the millennial population of the United States. Although many millennials harbor a substantial level of mistrust toward many major political and civil institutions, the role of president is seen as relatively more trustworthy. This trend may however be subject to change following the departure of President Obama who proved himself popular among the millennial population in successive campaign victories.

Pennsylvania has taken part in every U.S. presidential election, correctly voting for the nationwide winner in 47 out of 59 elections, giving a success rate of eighty percent. Since 1828, Pennsylvania has voted for the Democratic nominee in twenty elections, and the Republican Party's nominee in 26 elections (including all but one elections from 1860 to 1932). The only time where Pennsylvania did not vote for a major party candidate was in 1912, where it granted its 38 electoral votes to Theodore Roosevelt, who was running as the candidate of the newly-formed Progressive Party. After voting Democrat in all elections between 1992 and 2012, Pennsylvania voted red in 2016, as Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by less than one percent of the popular vote. In 2020, Joe Biden flipped Pennsylvania blue again by 1.2 percent of the popular vote. Pennsylvania proved to be the decisive state in the week following the 2020 election, as the returns of mail in ballots gradually swung the result in Biden's favor, following a strong early showing from Donald Trump; the development of these results eventually signaled that Joe Biden had (provisionally) obtained the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, leading all major news outlets to declare him the winner.

Pennsylvanians in office Prior to the 2020 election, James Buchanan is the only U.S. president to have been born in the Keystone State. Several other major party nominees have been born in Pennsylvania, including three of the losing candidates who ran between 1864 and 1884. Although he is more commonly associated with Delaware, Joe Biden's victory in 2020 made him the the second U.S. president to have been born in Pennsylvania, having spent the first ten years of his life in Scranton. Biden will, most likely, want to be remembered more favorably than Buchanan, who is consistently ranked as the worst U.S. president in history. Weakening influence From 1804 until 1964, Pennsylvania had the second-highest allocation of electoral votes in every U.S. presidential election (usually behind New York), with the number peaking at 38 electoral votes between 1912 and 1928. Since then, Pennsylvania's allocation of electoral votes has fallen gradually, and is expected to be just 19 votes in the 2024 election; half of what it was one century previously. The reason for this drop in electoral votes is due Pennsylvanians migrating to other parts of the country, while growing populations across the border and Midwestern states has seen a shift in population distribution across the country. Nonetheless, with 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is likely to remain one of the most valuable battleground states in future elections.

The 1860 election cemented the Republican Party's position as one of the two major parties in U.S. politics, along with the already-established Democratic Party. Since this time, all U.S. presidents have been affiliated with these two parties, and their candidates have generally performed the best in each presidential election. In spite of this two-party dominance, there have always been third-party or independent candidates running on the ballot, either on a nationwide, regional or state level. No third-party candidate has ever won a U.S. election, although there have been several occasions where they have carried states or split the vote with major party candidates. Today, the largest third-party in U.S. politics is the Libertarian Party, who are considered to be socially liberal, but economically conservative; in the 2016 election, their nominee, Gary Johnson, secured just over three percent of the popular vote, while their latest candidate, Jo Jorgenson, received just over one percent of the vote in the 2020 election.

Theodore Roosevelt The most successful third-party nominee was Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election, who was the only third-party candidate to come second in a U.S. election. The former president had become disillusioned with his successor's growing conservatism, and challenged the incumbent President Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912. Roosevelt proved to be the most popular candidate in the primaries, however Taft had already secured enough Republican delegates in the south to seal the nomination. Roosevelt then used this split in the Republican Party to form his own, Progressive Party, and challenged both major party candidates for the presidency (even taking a bullet in the process). In the end, Roosevelt carried six states, and won over 27 percent of the popular vote, while Taft carried just two states with 23 percent of the vote; this split in the Republican Party allowed the Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson, to win 82 percent of the electoral votes despite only winning 42 percent of the popular vote.

Other notable performances The last third-party candidate to win electoral votes was George Wallace* in the 1968 election. The Democratic Party had been the most popular party in the south since before the Civil War, however their increasingly progressive policies in the civil rights era alienated many of their southern voters. Wallace ran on a white supremacist and pro-segregationist platform and won the popular vote in five states. This was a similar story to that of Storm Thurmond, twenty years earlier.

In the 1992 election, Independent candidate Ross Perot received almost one fifth of the popular vote. Although he did not win any electoral votes, Perot split the vote so much that he prevented either Clinton or Bush Sr. from winning a majority in any state except Arkansas (Clinton's home state). Perot ran again in 1996, but with less than half the share of votes he received four years previously; subsequent studies and polls have shown that Perot took an equal number of votes from both of the major party candidates in each election.

United States presidential elections are quadrennial elections that decide who will be the President and Vice President of the United States for the next four years. Voter turnout has ranged between 54 and 70 percent since 1964, with white voters having the highest voter turnout rate (particularly when those of Hispanic descent are excluded). In recent decades, turnout among black voters has got much closer to the national average, and in 2008 and 2012, the turnout among black voters was higher than the national average, exceeded only by non-Hispanic white voters; this has been attributed to Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic nominee in these years, where he was the first African American candidate to run as a major party's nominee. Turnout among Asian and Hispanic voters is much lower than the national average, and turnout has even been below half of the national average in some elections. This has been attributed to a variety of factors, such as the absence of voting tradition in some communities or families, the concentration of Asian and Hispanic communities in urban (non-swing) areas, and a disproportionate number of young people (who are less likely to vote).

In U.S. presidential elections since 1964, voters in the 18 to 24 age bracket have traditionally had the lowest turnout rates among all ethnicities. From 1964 until 1996, white voters in this age bracket had the highest turnout rates of the four major ethnic groups in the U.S., particularly those of non-Hispanic origin. However participation was highest among young Black voters in 2008 and 2012, during the elections where Barack Obama, the U.S.' first African-American major party candidate, was nominated. Young Asian American and Hispanic voters generally have the lowest turnout rates, and were frequently below half of the overall 18 to 24 turnout before the 2000s.

Illinois has taken part in 51 U.S. presidential elections since 1820, and has correctly voted for the winning candidate on 42 occasions, giving a success rate of 82 percent. The Prairie State has always voted for a major party candidate, choosing the Democratic-Republican Party's nominees in its first two elections, before voting for the Democratic Party's candidate 25 times, and the Republican candidate 24 times since 1832. After joining the union in 1818, Illinois has generally voted for each party in phases, and has been considered a safe Democrat state for the past three decades. In the 2020 election, the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, won the popular vote in Illinois by a 17 percent margin. The Land of Lincoln Since 1955, Illinois' state slogan has been "The Land of Lincoln", as a tribute to President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, but moved to Illinois in his early 20s, where he emerged as a prominent politician and lawyer before ascending to the presidency in 1861. Lincoln is not the only U.S. President to have resided in Illinois when taking office; his successor, Ulysses S. Grant, was an official Illinois resident when he took office in 1869 (although he had not lived there since before the Civil War), and Barack Obama began his legal career in Chicago in the 1980s, before eventually becoming a State Senator in 1997, and a U.S. Senator from Illinois in 2005. Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been born in Illinois, although he moved to California in his twenties and held public office there. A number of losing candidates also resided in or were born in Illinois, including 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who was born in Chicago. Electoral votes In the nineteenth century, Illinois' population boomed as Chicago grew to be one of the largest and most industrialized cities on the continent, and the early twentieth century saw over half a million black Americans move to Illinois during the Great Migration. With this population boom, Illinois' designation of electoral votes grew from just three in the 1820s, to 29 between 1912 and 1940; this was the third highest in the country after New York and Pennsylvania. Since the Second World War, changes in the U.S. population distribution has meant that Illinois' share of electoral votes has gradually decreased, standing at twenty votes since 2012, and expected to drop to 18 in the 2024 election.

As of December 7, 2020, 66.7 percent of the eligible voting population in the United States voted in the 2020 presidential election. As of this date, voter turnout was highest in Minnesota, at 80 percent.

Voters from the state of Massachusetts have been involved in all 59 U.S. presidential elections, and have voted for the overall winning candidate on 39 occasions, giving a success rate of 66 percent. Generally speaking, Massachusetts has voted for the more liberal candidate throughout its electoral history, voting for the Federalist, Whig and Republican Party nominees throughout most of the nineteenth century, and then switching to the Democratic Party in the twentieth century. Since 1928, Massachusetts has voted for the Democratic nominee in 20 out of 24 elections, breaking with this tradition only when voting for Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan in each of their landslide victories. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden won with almost two thirds of the popular vote. Bay State presidents A total of four U.S. presidents have been born in Massachusetts; these were both John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, John F. Kennedy, and George H. W. Bush (although his family moved to Connecticut the year after his birth); of these four, Bush was the only who failed to win in his birth state, however his competitor, Michael Dukakis, was also a Massachusetts native and was the state governor at the time. Calvin Coolidge, while born and raised in Vermont, spent most of his adulthood and political career in Massachusetts, and was a resident there when ascending to the presidency. Massachusetts was also the birth or home state of several losing candidates, such as Rufus King, Daniel Webster or John Kerry, all of whom carried Massachusetts in their respective elections; while former Governor Mitt Romney was the only major party nominee not to win the state while living there. Electoral vote allocation As one of the original thirteen colonies, Massachusetts had a high share of the electoral college votes in early years, rising to 22 votes in the 1810s. This number then fluctuated throughout most of the nineteenth century, between twelve and 15 votes, before rising to 18 votes in the 1910s and 1920s. In the past hundred years, due to a slower population growth rate than in other states, Massachusetts' allocation of electoral votes has gradually fallen to eleven votes in the past few elections, and it is expected to stay at this level in the 2024 election.

New York has taken part in all U.S. presidential elections since 1792, and has cast the majority of its electoral votes for the nationwide winner in 47 elections, giving a success rate of 81 percent. New York has generally voted for the more liberal candidate in U.S. elections, and has been a safe Democratic state since the 1988 election. In the 2020 election, New York was a comfortable win for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who carried the state by a 23 percent margin; however, the native New Yorker, Donald Trump, won in several of New York's more rural districts with around seventy percent of their popular vote, showing a stark contrast between urban and rural districts. Presidents from the Empire State A total of five U.S. presidents were born in New York; these were Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Donald Trump. These five men ran for president in eleven different elections, and carried their home state in six elections; Donald Trump is the only New Yorker to have won the election without carrying his home state. Several other losing candidates have carried their home state, with the most recent being Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 (both held public office in New York, but were born elsewhere).

Declining significance Throughout most of U.S. history, New York was the most populous state, and therefore had the largest share of electoral votes. This began in the 1812 election, where New York had 29 electoral votes; the allocation then fluctuated throughout the rest of the 1800s and early 1900s, peaking at 47 votes in the 1930s and 1940s. Since the 1950s, however, New York's allocation of electoral votes has gradually declined, and it was overtaken by California in the 1972 election, and then Texas in 2004. This is due to differing population growth rates across various regions of the U.S., as growth rates along the southern border tend to be much higher than in states along the east coast. In the 2020 election, New York's allocation of electoral votes is 29; this is expected to fall again to 28 votes in the 2024 election, where it will likely be overtaken by Florida as the third-most populous state.

The state of Washington has taken part in all 33 U.S. presidential elections since 1892, voting for the nationwide winner in 23 elections, giving a success rate of seventy percent. Washington voted for the Republican Party's nominee in 14 elections, and the Democratic nominee in 18; while Washington did not have a strong party affiliation throughout most of its history, it has grown to be a solid blue state in the past few decades, voting for the Democratic nominee in all elections since 1988. The only election where Washington did not vote for a major party nominee was in the 1912 election, where it voted for former-President Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as a third-party candidate for the Progressive Party. In the 2020 election, Washington proved to be a comfortable victory for the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, who won by an almost twenty percent margin in the popular vote.

Electoral votes Washington's influence has steadily grown throughout U.S. election history, with its allocation of electoral votes gradually increasing from four votes in at the turn of the twentieth century, to twelve votes since 2012. This is largely due to Washington state's high population growth, which has consistently grown at a faster rate than the national average since the 1940s; Seattle, Washington's largest city, has consistently been the fastest growing city in the U.S. in the past decade, due to the booming tech industry and high standard of living. As of the 2020 election, no U.S. president or major party nominee was born in Washington, or resided there when taking office.

The "Hamilton Electors" In the 2016 election, four of Washington's electors made headlines by not voting for Hillary Clinton, who was the statewide winner of the popular vote. Instead, three electors voted for Colin Powell, while one voted for Faith Spotted Eagle; respectively making them the first African-American Republican and Native American to receive electoral votes for president. This was part of the "Hamilton Electors" movement, which began shortly after the popular vote results were announced. Its aim it was to have 35 electors cast faithless ballots, reduce Donald Trump's electoral vote majority below 270, and bring the election before the House of Representatives. Ultimately, only seven electors cast faithless ballots (only two of which were for Trump), and the four faithless electors from Washington were fined one thousand dollars each. Following a series of subsequent legal challenges, in July 2020, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states may oblige electors to vote for their pledged candidate in future elections, therefore giving all states the power to invalidate faithless ballots in future presidential elections.