What percentage of the popular vote did Harris get?

1. Vote totals and the headline percentage

The Financial Times’ election tracker shows Kamala Harris with 75,019,268 votes, which it presents as 48.4% of the counted national popular vote; the same tracker lists Donald Trump at about 77.3 million votes and 49.9% ^[1]. Local reporting from FOX 9 likewise reports Trump with 77.3 million and Harris with about 75 million votes, confirming the FT percentage presentation ^[2].

2. Why you might see slightly different numbers elsewhere

Different outlets round and update totals as certification and recount work finish; the FT snapshot gives 75,019,268 (48.4%) for Harris while some local summaries round her total to “75 million” ^{[1] [2]}. Small differences in percentages or raw vote counts across sources usually reflect timing of updates or whether provisional/late-counted ballots are included; available sources do not provide a single final certified figure beyond the numbers they report ^{[1] [2]}.

3. How that percentage fits the outcome — narrow margin

The reported 48.4% for Harris versus 49.9% for Trump implies a narrow national popular-vote margin of roughly 1.5 percentage points in Trump’s favor, a margin corroborated by post-election analyses noting a close national result and Trump’s win of the Electoral College ^{[3] [1]}. Analysts and data firms framed the 2024 result as a close national race driven by turnout and demographic shifts, which aligns with the small percentage gap reported ^{[4] [3]}.

4. Demographic context behind Harris’s vote share

Post-election studies cited in the provided reporting say Harris retained strong support in urban areas (about 65% in cities) and among many college-educated voters, but lost ground among some working-class and minority groups compared with Biden’s 2020 performance — factors that help explain why her nearly 48.4% share was not enough to win ^{[3] [5] [4]}. Cook Political Report’s write-up of Catalist data points to defections and weaker turnout among the younger and more diverse voters Democrats had relied on previously ^[4].

5. What the percentage does — and doesn’t — tell you

A national popular-vote percentage (48.4%) shows overall voter preference but does not map directly to Electoral College outcomes; state-by-state margins mattered more to who won the presidency ^[1]. The popular-vote figure also masks subgroup variation: Pew and Catalist-based reporting highlight important splits by race, age and urban/rural residence that the headline percentage cannot capture ^{[5] [4]}.

6. Competing narratives about why Harris reached this level

Some analyses emphasize structural turnout changes — fewer new/infrequent voters and a larger young cohort that was less favorable to Harris than expected — as central reasons for her vote share ^[4]. Other reporting underscores campaign dynamics, messaging and specific state-level shifts (for example, tighter margins in Sun Belt and Latinx communities) highlighted by Pew’s demographic breakdowns ^{[5] [3]}. Both perspectives appear in the available material and together offer a fuller explanation for a 48.4% national vote share ^{[4] [5]}.

7. Limitations and what’s not in the provided reporting

Available sources here supply vote totals and several postmortems on voting patterns, but they do not provide a single, final certified nationwide tabulation beyond the FT and local figures cited; nor do they include detailed state certifying documents or the full certification timeline ^{[1] [2]}. If you need the official, final certified national popular-vote totals from the relevant state boards or the final consolidated dataset, those specific sources are not included in the materials provided.

Closing note: For quick reference, the sources above report Kamala Harris at roughly 75.0 million votes and 48.4% of the popular vote, with Trump about 77.3 million and 49.9% — a narrow national margin reflected in the analyses cited ^{[1] [2] [3]}.