How many votes did Donald Trump get in 2020?
Executive summary
Donald J. Trump received 74,216,154 votes in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, according to the official 2020 presidential general election results compiled by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) [1]. Joe Biden won the popular vote and the presidency; the broader context of record turnout and post-election litigation is well documented in contemporaneous reporting [2] [3] [4].
1. How many votes — the certified headline figure
The certified national popular-vote total for Donald J. Trump in the 2020 presidential election is 74,216,154 votes, as recorded in the official 2020 Presidential General Election Results document published by the FEC [1]. This raw-vote figure is the standard reference used by elections authorities and analysts when comparing candidates’ vote counts across cycles [1].
2. Where that number sits in the outcome and electoral math
Although Trump’s raw popular-vote total was roughly 74.2 million, the presidency is decided by the Electoral College; in 2020 Joe Biden secured 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, a result reflected in mainstream election tallies and state certifications reported by multiple outlets and aggregators [5] [6]. The divergence between raw vote totals and electoral outcome is central to understanding why a high raw vote count did not translate into a second term for the incumbent [2].
3. Turnout and historical framing
The 2020 election produced one of the highest turnouts in a century, a fact repeatedly documented in post-election analyses and demographic turnouts studies, which helped push both major-party candidates to record raw-vote totals [3] [4]. That surge in participation means Trump’s 74.2 million votes represented his largest raw-vote performance across his presidential bids, but still trailed Biden’s larger popular-vote total as counted in official tallies [1] [4].
4. Challenges, claims, and the post-election debate
After the election, Trump and some allies alleged widespread fraud and sought legal and administrative remedies to contest state results; those efforts, and court rulings limiting certain executive attempts to alter vote counting rules, are part of the public record and were widely reported [7] [4]. Reporting and official documents show that the legal challenges and public claims did not change certifications of state results that produced the certified vote totals and Electoral College count [1] [5].
5. Sources, limits, and why this number matters
The 74,216,154 figure comes from the FEC’s official compilation of the 2020 presidential general election results, which is the authoritative federal dataset for vote totals even though the U.S. lacks a single centralized election authority and individual states certify their own tallies [1] [3]. Reporting outlets and data projects such as Ballotpedia, 270toWin, and Wikipedia contextualize those numbers within electoral votes, turnout, and county-level patterns, but the raw popular-vote total remains the primary, auditable metric cited by election analysts [5] [4] [2].
6. Alternate perspectives and the enduring questions
Some political actors and partisan sources have disputed the meaning of the popular vote in 2020 or emphasized procedural irregularities; however, mainstream election authorities and the body of certifications compiled by the FEC record the 74,216,154 vote total for Trump and the official Electoral College outcome favoring Biden, a contrast reflected across the publicly available official sources and election compendia [1] [5] [6]. Where reporting or advocacy argues otherwise, readers should check state certifications and the FEC compilation for the underlying vote counts [1].