U.S. Presidential Election Results: Every Election, 1788–2024

The United States has held 60 presidential elections from the first election of 1788–89 through 2024. Across that history, the number of electoral votes, political parties and rules governing the Electoral College have changed substantially.

This page provides a reference to every U.S. presidential election, showing the president elected, party, electoral votes and principal opponent. The results are based primarily on the National Archives’ official Electoral College records.

For a broader explanation of the process itself, see How U.S. Presidential Elections Work: A Step-by-Step Guide.

U.S. Presidential Election Results at a Glance

The first election involved 69 electors; the Electoral College has had 538 electoral votes since the 1964 election. Two presidential elections, 1800 and 1824, ultimately required the House of Representatives to choose the president. The disputed electoral returns of 1876 were referred to a special Electoral Commission created by Congress.

The National Archives identifies 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016 when discussing elections in which the candidate leading the nationwide popular vote did not become president. The 1824 case requires special caution because voting and elector-selection practices were not yet nationally uniform.

Complete U.S. Presidential Election Results, 1788–2024

EV = electoral votes.

The underlying electoral totals are drawn from the National Archives’ election-by-election Electoral College records. Examples of the audited historical and modern records include 1796 (71–68), 1820 (231–1), 1856 (174–114, plus eight for Fillmore), 1912 (435–88, plus eight for Taft), 2000 (271–266), 2016 (304–227), 2020 (306–232) and 2024 (312–226).

Notes on unusual results

1788–89 and 1792: The original Electoral College system did not use separate presidential and vice-presidential ballots. Washington received a vote from every participating elector in both elections. NARA labels Washington “Independent” in its 1792 results; this table uses No party to avoid implying membership in an organized political party.

1796: John Adams received 71 electoral votes and Thomas Jefferson 68. Under the original system, Jefferson therefore became vice president even though he was Adams’s political opponent.

1800: Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each received 73 electoral votes. The House of Representatives ultimately chose Jefferson, with 10 state delegations supporting him, four supporting Burr and two making no choice.

1824: This is the most important exception to interpreting the table conventionally. Andrew Jackson received 99 electoral votes, John Quincy Adams 84, William Crawford 41 and Henry Clay 37. No candidate reached the required majority of 131. Under the Twelfth Amendment, the House chose among the top three and elected Adams, with 13 state delegations for Adams, seven for Jackson and four for Crawford. Thus Adams is listed as the president elected, even though Jackson received more electoral votes.

1828: The National Archives’ 1828 page labels Andrew Jackson “Democratic-Republican”; this table uses Democratic while flagging the historical naming issue rather than silently treating party labels across eras as perfectly consistent. NARA records Jackson’s electoral victory as 178–83.

1864: Lincoln ran for reelection on the National Union ticket. The National Archives results table classifies him as Republican. Confederate states did not participate in that election.

1868: Grant received 214 electoral votes. Seymour’s total can be shown as 71 excluding Georgia or 80 including Georgia because Georgia’s nine votes were contested and the House and Senate did not agree whether to count them. Grant’s election was unaffected either way.

1872: Horace Greeley died after Election Day but before the electors met. Three electoral votes cast for him were not counted; 63 counted presidential electoral votes went to other candidates, while Grant received 286.

1876: Hayes received 185 electoral votes and Tilden 184 after electoral votes from four states were disputed. Congress established an Electoral Commission, which awarded the decision to Hayes.

1912: Woodrow Wilson received 435 electoral votes. Progressive candidate Theodore Roosevelt received 88, while Republican William Howard Taft received eight.

1948: Truman received 303 electoral votes, Dewey 189 and States’ Rights Democratic candidate Strom Thurmond 39.

1960: Kennedy received 303 electoral votes, Nixon 219 and Harry F. Byrd 15. Historical national popular-vote comparisons for this election require care because of Alabama’s unpledged Democratic electors; this article therefore does not use a single popular-vote figure for 1960.

1968: Nixon received 301 electoral votes, Humphrey 191 and George Wallace 46. Wallace’s total included one North Carolina elector who did not vote for Nixon as pledged.

1972, 1976 and 1988: Each included an electoral vote cast for someone other than the candidate to whom the elector would ordinarily have been expected to vote. In 1976, for example, a Washington elector voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Gerald Ford. NARA records Carter 297, Ford 240 and Reagan one.

2000: Bush received 271 electoral votes and Gore 266; one District of Columbia elector cast a blank ballot. The official FEC national totals were 50,992,335 for Gore and 50,455,156 for Bush, a difference of 537,179 votes.

2004: Bush received 286 electoral votes, Kerry 251, and one Minnesota elector cast a presidential vote for John Edwards.

2016: The Electoral College vote as actually cast was Trump 304 and Clinton 227. NARA records faithless votes in Hawaii, Texas and Washington.

2020: Biden received 306 electoral votes and Trump 232. Objections were made during the congressional count concerning Arizona and Pennsylvania, but neither chamber sustained them and all electoral votes were counted.

2024: Trump received 312 electoral votes and Harris 226. Maine and Nebraska each split their electoral votes under their district-based allocation systems.

How to Read the Table

The President elected column identifies the person who ultimately became president as a result of that election. The EV column records that person’s presidential electoral votes.

That distinction matters most in 1824, when John Quincy Adams became president despite receiving fewer electoral votes than Andrew Jackson. It also keeps the table usable as a chronological reference to presidents elected rather than simply a ranking of electoral-vote totals.

The two electoral-vote columns also do not necessarily add up to the total number of electoral votes. Other candidates sometimes received electoral votes. In 1860, for example, John C. Breckinridge received 72 and John Bell 39 in addition to Lincoln’s 180 and Douglas’s 12.

Why There Is No Popular-Vote Column

A national popular-vote column extending all the way back to 1788 would give a misleading impression that the figures are directly comparable across American history.

The Constitution gives state legislatures authority over the manner of appointing electors, and elector-selection practices differed substantially during the early republic. In 1824, for example, Jackson led the available popular vote as well as the electoral vote, but elector selection was not yet based on a uniform nationwide popular election.

Later elections present other historical complications. The 1960 election is a notable example because Alabama used a slate that included unpledged Democratic electors.

For these reasons, this reference table focuses on the official Electoral College results, for which the National Archives provides a consistent election-by-election series from 1789 onward.

For a focused discussion of the elections associated with different national popular-vote and presidential outcomes, see When the Electoral College and Popular Vote Diverged: Five U.S. Elections Explained.

The Earliest Presidential Elections Worked Differently

Before the Twelfth Amendment, electors did not cast separate ballots for president and vice president. Each elector voted for two people. The person receiving the greatest number of votes became president if that total constituted the required majority, while the runner-up became vice president.

That arrangement produced an awkward result in 1796, when Federalist John Adams became president and his political opponent, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, became vice president. Four years later, Democratic-Republican electors produced a 73–73 tie between Jefferson and his intended running mate Aaron Burr.

The Twelfth Amendment changed the process by requiring electors to cast distinct ballots for president and vice president. When no presidential candidate receives an electoral majority, the House chooses from the top three presidential electoral-vote recipients, with each state delegation having one vote.

Elections Decided by the House

The presidential election has gone to the House under two different constitutional arrangements.

In 1800, Jefferson and Burr tied with 73 electoral votes each under the original Electoral College rules. The House selected Jefferson.

In 1824, no candidate received an electoral majority. Jackson had 99 electoral votes, Adams 84, Crawford 41 and Clay 37. Because the Twelfth Amendment limits the House choice to the top three, Clay was excluded. The House then elected Adams.

A related but different event occurred in 1836. Martin Van Buren won the presidency with 170 electoral votes, but no vice-presidential candidate received the required majority. The Senate consequently selected Richard M. Johnson as vice president, 33–16.

Electoral College and Popular Vote Divergences

The National Archives discusses five elections in this context: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016.

These elections did not all arise under identical circumstances. The 1824 election involved four major candidates, no Electoral College majority and a House contingent election. The 1876 election involved disputed electoral returns and an Electoral Commission. The 2000 election included a 271–266 Electoral College result and a national FEC popular-vote total in which Gore led Bush by 537,179 votes.

For the detailed history of all five, see When the Electoral College and Popular Vote Diverged: Five U.S. Elections Explained.

Third-Party and Other Electoral Votes

The two major-party nominees have not always accounted for every electoral vote.

In 1856, Millard Fillmore received eight electoral votes. In 1860, Breckinridge received 72 and Bell 39. In 1892, James B. Weaver received 22. Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive candidacy received 88 in 1912, placing him second in the Electoral College ahead of incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft, who received eight.

Later examples include Thurmond’s 39 electoral votes in 1948 and Wallace’s 46 in 1968. Faithless electors and abstentions have also occasionally caused the final Electoral College count to differ from the expected party totals.

How the Electoral College Expanded

The size of the Electoral College has changed as the country expanded and congressional representation changed.

There were 69 electors participating in the first presidential election. The total reached 138 by 1796, 261 in 1824, 303 in 1860 and 531 in 1912. The District of Columbia later received three electoral votes under the Twenty-third Amendment.

Since the 1964 presidential election, the Electoral College has consisted of 538 electoral votes, making 270 the number normally required for a majority. The 2024 result was Trump 312 and Harris 226.

Key Takeaways

The 60 presidential elections from 1788–89 through 2024 span several distinct versions of the American electoral system. The earliest elections operated under the Constitution’s original two-vote Electoral College procedure; the Twelfth Amendment established separate presidential and vice-presidential ballots; political parties changed and reorganized; the Electoral College expanded; and third-party candidates, disputed returns, contingent elections and faithless electors occasionally produced results that require more explanation than a simple winner-and-loser table can provide.

The consistent historical measure available across the entire period is the Electoral College result, which is why that is the central dataset used on this page.

Sources

The principal source is the National Archives — Electoral College Results, which provides election-by-election Electoral College records from 1789 through 2024. Constitutional procedure was checked against Congress.gov — U.S. Constitution and Twelfth Amendment. The 2000 national popular-vote figures come from the Federal Election Commission — Federal Elections 2000. Additional historical context was checked against the National Archives’ Electoral College history and educational materials.

Election-related information last reviewed September 2026. The American Elections is an independent educational resource and is not affiliated with any campaign, political party, or election authority.