Honestly, the numbers from the 2020 election are still staggering when you look at them in black and white. People talk about the "Blue Wall" or the "Red Wave," but the raw data tells a much more human story about how many people actually showed up. When the dust finally settled and every single county in the country certified their results, the final tally for Joe Biden was massive. He finished with 81,283,501 votes.
That isn't just a big number. It was a record-breaker. It’s the highest number of votes ever cast for a presidential candidate in the history of the United States. Basically, about 51.3% of everyone who voted chose the Biden-Harris ticket. For context, Donald Trump pulled in 74,223,975 votes (roughly 46.8%). Even though Biden won by a margin of more than 7 million people, the way those votes were distributed across the map made the whole thing feel a lot closer than it actually was.
The Electoral College Breakdown
While the popular vote gets a lot of the headlines, the real math happens in the Electoral College. You’ve probably heard the number 306 tossed around. That was Biden’s final count. Interestingly, it was the exact same number of electoral votes Donald Trump won with back in 2016, which many at the time called a "landslide."
To get to that 306, Biden had to flip several states that had gone red four years prior. We're talking about places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—the famous "Rust Belt" trio. But he also picked off Arizona and Georgia, two states that hadn't gone for a Democrat in decades.
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Here is how those specific electoral counts shook out for him:
- California: 55 votes (his biggest haul)
- New York: 29 votes
- Pennsylvania: 20 votes
- Georgia: 16 votes
- Arizona: 11 votes
Every one of those states had to certify their results individually before the January 6th joint session of Congress. It was a long, messy process, but the numbers held up through dozens of recounts and court challenges.
Why How Many Votes Did Biden Have in 2020 Matters for History
Looking back, the 2020 turnout was kind of a freak occurrence in American politics. We haven't seen that many people care enough to cast a ballot since 1900. About 66.8% of eligible voters participated. That's a huge jump from 2016.
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So, where did all these extra votes for Biden come from? Experts like the folks at the Pew Research Center have spent years digging into the "who" behind the "how many." It wasn't just one group. Biden made significant gains with suburban voters—especially women. He also managed to hold onto enough of the "working class" vote in the Midwest to tip the scales.
One thing people often forget is the "early vote" phenomenon. Because of the pandemic, millions of people used mail-in ballots or voted early in person. In fact, a majority of Biden's 81 million votes were likely cast before Election Day even started. This created that "blue shift" we saw on the news, where it looked like Trump was winning early on Tuesday night, but as the mail-in ballots were opened, the totals for Biden began to climb.
Comparing Biden to Past Presidents
If you compare Joe Biden's 81 million votes to previous winners, the scale of 2020 becomes even clearer.
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- Barack Obama (2008): 69.4 million votes
- George W. Bush (2004): 62.0 million votes
- Ronald Reagan (1984): 54.4 million votes
Obviously, the population grows every year, so the numbers will naturally trend upward, but the 15-million-vote jump between 2016 and 2020 was still an anomaly. It wasn't just that Biden was popular; it was that the entire electorate was incredibly motivated on both sides.
The Margin of Victory
Even with 81 million votes, the election was decided by a razor-thin margin in just a few spots. If you took about 43,000 votes across three states—Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona—and moved them to the other side, the Electoral College would have been a tie. It’s a weird paradox. You can have the most popular vote support in history and still be a few thousand people away from losing the whole thing.
This is why campaigns focus so much on "get out the vote" efforts in specific zip codes rather than trying to win every single person in the country. Biden's team knew they didn't need 81 million votes to win; they just needed the right 81 million votes in the right places.
What Should You Do With This Info?
If you're trying to understand current political trends or preparing for the next election cycle, don't just look at the 81 million total. Focus on the demographic shifts.
- Check the suburban data: See how the "donut holes" around cities like Atlanta and Philadelphia changed. That’s where the 2020 election was actually won.
- Look at the turnout percentage: High turnout usually helps the challenger, but 2020 showed that both sides can turn out in record numbers simultaneously.
- Verify your sources: Always use official FEC (Federal Election Commission) data or the National Archives for the final, certified counts.
The number of votes Biden had in 2020—that 81,283,501—stands as the current benchmark for what a winning coalition looks like in modern America. Whether that record gets broken again is anyone's guess, but for now, it's the highest bar ever set.