What are the Federal Election Commission’s certified popular-vote totals for the 2024 presidential election?
Executive summary
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) publishes an “Official 2024 Presidential General Election Results” report compiled from state election offices and makes the PDF and spreadsheet available on its website [1][2]. The reporting provided to this analysis confirms where the certified totals are published (FEC PDF/Excel) but does not include the numerical vote totals themselves in the material supplied here, so this article explains where those certified popular-vote totals are officially recorded and what secondary sources report about the top-line outcome [1][2][3].
1. Where the FEC records the certified popular-vote totals
The FEC’s official repository for certified presidential vote totals is the “Official 2024 Presidential General Election Results” document and accompanying Excel file, compiled from state election offices and posted on the agency’s site; the FEC also advertises a biennial Federal Elections compilation of certified federal election results [1][2]. The PDF referenced in the supplied reporting is the authoritative file the Commission publishes after states submit their certified results [1], and external election-data aggregators cite that FEC PDF as the source for national and statewide tallies [4].
2. What the supplied secondary reporting says about the national outcome
Public-facing summaries and encyclopedic entries assembled from diverse media and official tallies frame the 2024 outcome as a presidential victory for Donald Trump, with reporting noting Trump won a national popular-vote plurality of approximately 49.8% as reflected in widely used compendia such as Wikipedia [3]. Secondary compilations—like IFES and other election trackers—reference the FEC results for both the electoral vote distribution and popular-vote totals, and they report Trump’s electoral victory [4]. These secondary sources rely on the same FEC dataset the Commission publishes [1][2].
3. Why exact numeric totals are not reproduced here
The documents and snippets provided for this assignment identify and point to the FEC’s official results file [1][2] and to reputable aggregators [5][4], but the supplied excerpts do not include the table of certified numeric vote totals by candidate; therefore this report will not invent or transcribe numbers not present in the reporting offered. Where the primary FEC PDF is accessible, that single source contains the certified raw vote counts and is the proper reference for precise totals [1].
4. How different outlets use and interpret the FEC counts
Election trackers and data projects—The Green Papers, IFES, Dave Leip’s Atlas, Ballotpedia and news organizations—use the FEC official file as their foundation but add context (party labels, write‑ins, state-by-state breakdowns) and sometimes slight formatting differences; for example, The Green Papers presents party-level popular-vote breakdowns derived from the official returns [5], while IFES and others cite the FEC document when reproducing national and electoral figures [4]. These intermediaries can reflect editorial priorities (ease of reading, emphasis on electoral-vote maps, or historical comparison) that shape how the certified totals are presented to the public [5][4].
5. What readers seeking the exact certified totals should do next
To obtain the exact FEC-certified popular-vote totals for every candidate, consult the FEC’s “Official 2024 Presidential General Election Results” PDF or Excel file on the FEC website—the Commission’s file is explicitly identified as the compiled, certified dataset compiled from state election offices [1][2]. For corroboration and alternative presentations (percentages, state-by-state breakdowns, and historical comparisons), use complementary compilations such as The Green Papers and established election-data projects that cite the FEC dataset [5][4].