US Politics
The United States elects its president not by national popular vote but through the Electoral College: 538 electors, split between the states roughly in proportion to population, plus three for Washington, D.C. Win the most votes in a state and — in 48 states and D.C. — you take all of its electors. Reach 270 and you win the presidency. Because almost every state leans reliably one way, campaigns pour their effort into a handful of swing states that decide the result.
Two parties have a near-total grip on national office: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party (the “GOP”). Third-party and independent candidates draw votes and occasionally tip a close race, but the winner-take-all system makes it almost impossible for them to win electoral votes.
How the states have voted
Each tile below is one state (plus D.C.), labelled with its postal code and coloured by the party that carried it. Step through the last five presidential elections to watch the map shift — Barack Obama's two Democratic wins in 2008 and 2012, Donald Trump's upset of 2016, Joe Biden's 2020 win, and Trump's return in 2024. Tap any state for who won it and how many electoral votes it carried, or search for one by name.
The tiles are equal-sized, so a small state reads as clearly as a large one, but the bar and totals below are weighted by electoral votes — what actually decides the election. The faint line on the bar marks the 270 needed to win.
2024 presidential election — tap a state for details
Each map shows the party that carried every state, winner-take-all. “What changed” outlines the states that flipped since the previous election and fades the ones that held. Electoral-vote totals reflect each era's apportionment (states gain and lose seats after each census). Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions to winner-take-all — they award two electors statewide and the rest by congressional district, so a stray elector can cross party lines; the map colours them by their statewide winner, which is why a state total here can differ by one or two from the official count. Sources are listed at the foot of the page. Last reviewed June 2026.
America at the ballot box, 1960–2024
The map reaches back to 2008. The national picture goes back further. Each column is one presidential election; the stack shows how the 538 electoral votes split between the Democrats, the Republicans, and the third-party and independent candidates who occasionally broke through — George Wallace's Southern bloc in 1968, Ross Perot's 19% in 1992. Switch to vote share to see the popular vote, which can diverge sharply from the electoral count: a candidate can lose the popular vote and still win the White House, as happened in 2000 and 2016. The grey line is turnout. Tap a column for the numbers and who became president.
1960–2024 · electoral votes — tap a column
Electoral votes as officially counted, grouped into Democratic, Republican, and third-party/other (the last includes faithless electors and the Southern electors of 1960). The total is 538 (270 to win); it was 537 in 1960, before D.C. voted, and one elector abstained in 2000. Vote share is the popular vote. Turnout is the share of the voting-eligible population, and earlier figures are estimates. Sources are below.
The two parties
America's two parties are broad coalitions, and the meaning of each has shifted over time — the “Solid South” was Democratic for a century and is now mostly Republican. The sketches below describe where the parties stand today, with a few concrete positions to make them easier to compare. They summarise stated positions and are necessarily simplified.
Democratic Party
The centre-left of the two, and the older party (its roots reach to Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson). Its modern coalition leans on cities and suburbs, younger and college-educated voters, and Black, Hispanic and other minority voters. It backs an active federal government on the economy and on social policy.
- Economy: a larger role for government — higher taxes on top earners and corporations, a stronger safety net, organised labour, and public investment in infrastructure and clean energy.
- Health care: defends and expands the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), with the party's left pushing for a bigger public role still.
- Rights & society: abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, gun-control measures, and a path to legal status for many immigrants.
- Climate: treats climate change as urgent and central to energy and industrial policy.
Republican Party
The centre-right party, the “Grand Old Party”, founded in the 1850s in opposition to the spread of slavery and the party of Abraham Lincoln. Today its coalition rests on rural areas and small towns, white and working-class voters, and religious conservatives. Since 2016 it has been reshaped by Donald Trump's populist, “America First” movement.
- Economy: lower taxes, lighter regulation, and restraint on domestic spending; Trump's GOP adds tariffs and an explicitly protectionist line on trade.
- Immigration & borders: tighter border security and reduced immigration, a signature issue of the Trump era.
- Rights & society: restrictions on abortion (after the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade returned the question to the states), strong gun rights, and a traditionalist line on social issues.
- Energy: backs domestic oil and gas production and is sceptical of climate mandates.
Third parties and independents
Minor parties rarely win office but shape close races. The Libertarian Party (small government, civil liberties) and the Green Party (environmentalism, the left) field presidential candidates most cycles, and independents have at times drawn double-digit support — Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, John Anderson in 1980, George Wallace's segregationist run in 1968. A few senators sit as independents and caucus with the Democrats. Winner-take-all rules and ballot-access hurdles keep the system stubbornly two-party.
At a glance
The two parties on some headline questions — a simplification, and there is real range within each party.
| Issue | Democrats | Republicans |
|---|---|---|
| Government | Active federal role | Smaller government, more to the states |
| Taxes | Higher on top earners & firms | Lower taxes across the board |
| Health care | Expand public coverage | Market-based, less federal role |
| Immigration | Paths to legal status | Tighter borders, less immigration |
| Abortion | Protect access | Restrict; leave to the states |
| Climate & energy | Clean-energy transition | Domestic oil & gas; fewer mandates |
| Trade | Mixed; broadly freer trade | Tariffs, protectionism (Trump era) |
Sources & notes
A note on how this page was made: the maps, the data behind them, and some of the drafting were put together with the help of AI tools. I've checked the headline figures against the historical record (party electoral-vote and popular-vote totals match the standard results) and flagged where the data is approximate, but any mistakes are mine — if you spot one, please let me know. The party descriptions are my own plain-English summary of contested politics; I've aimed to be fair rather than to take sides.
- State and national results. Presidential results by state and the popular vote from the standard historical record — the National Archives' Electoral College records and the Federal Election Commission's official tallies.
- Apportionment. Electoral votes per state by census from the U.S. Census Bureau — the 2000 census (used in 2004 and 2008), 2010 (2012–2020) and 2020 (2024).
- Turnout. Voting-eligible-population turnout estimates after the United States Elections Project; figures before the 1980s are approximate.
- Map layout. A stylised one-tile-per-state grid in the tradition of the “tile grid map”; tiles are placed for recognisability, not exact geography.