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However, please note that the electoral vote counts shown above are based on the new 2024 electoral map using the decennial U.S. Census data.

For comparison, take a look at the actual 2020 electoral map or what changed from the 2020 electoral map.

Make Your Own Electoral Forecast

To create your own forecast for the 2024 election, click on the states in the map to toggle them between Democrat, Republican and Tossup and watch the electoral map tallies change. You can even download your custom map and share it on social media.

If you prefer, you can try a blank map.

As the 2024 election gets closer, we’ll update the consensus map based on the latest forecasts. Check back often or sign up for our email list.

It Takes 270 to Win

The winner of the presidential election must win the majority of the electoral votes — that is at least 270 out of the 538 available.

Because most states allocate their electoral votes on an “winner-take-all” basis — the exceptions being Maine and Nebraska, which split their electoral votes by congressional district — the candidate who wins enough states to reach 270 electoral votes becomes president.

Winning the national popular vote doesn’t matter, as we saw most recently in the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections where the winner of the popular vote actually lost the election. That’s led to many efforts to reform the Electoral College over the years.

There is actually one way to win the presidency without getting 270 electoral votes. If the election results in a 269 to 269 electoral vote tie, then the House of Representatives convenes to choose the president.

A Changing Electoral Map

In recent modern elections, there have been a dozen or more truly competitive battlegrounds which could result in many various paths to 270 electoral votes.

That’s changed in recent years as polarization has increased, resulting in red and blue strongholds with bigger victory margins.

For instance, despite the narrow popular vote margin in 2016, more than two dozen states were decided by margins of 15 percentage points or more.

In 1988, when the popular vote margin was seven percentage points, there were just 17 states which were won by such big margins.

The map also changes based on the shifts in population between the states. The map above is based on the 2020 U.S. Census data.