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Fact check: How many voters for Trump vs Biden
Executive Summary
The core factual claim is that voter totals differ between the 2020 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections: Joe Biden received roughly 81.27–81.28 million votes in 2020 while Donald Trump received roughly 74.22–74.23 million, and in 2024 several sources report Donald Trump won the popular vote with roughly 76.9–77.3 million votes to Kamala Harris’s roughly 74.4–75.0 million, a narrow margin of about 1.5 percentage points (or ~2.3 million votes by the higher estimates) [1] [2] [3] [4]. These figures come from official 2020 tallies and multiple post‑2024 reports; discrepancies among 2024 totals in the supplied sources reflect updates and rounding in reporting rather than fundamental disagreement about the outcome, which the sources consistently present as a Trump popular‑vote win [1] [4] [3].
1. Extracting the Central Claim That Shapes the Debate
The primary claim extracted from the supplied material is a simple head‑to‑head comparison of popular votes across two consecutive presidential elections: Biden vs. Trump in 2020 and Trump vs. Harris in 2024. The official 2020 election counts are reported as Biden 81,268,924 and Trump 74,216,154 in one source, with a closely matching alternative reporting of Biden 81,283,501 and Trump 74,223,975 in another source; both place Biden above Trump by roughly seven million votes [1] [2]. For 2024, the supplied documents consistently report a Trump popular‑vote victory, but they vary in the exact totals: one analysis gives Trump 76.9 million and Harris 74.4 million [4] [2], while another gives Trump 77.3 million to Harris 75.0 million [3]. The central, verifiable claim across sources is that Trump won the 2024 popular vote by a narrow margin after losing the 2020 popular vote.
2. The 2020 Baseline: Official Tallies and Electoral College Context
The 2020 baseline is clear and consistent: Joe Biden won the 2020 popular vote with approximately 81.27–81.28 million votes to Donald Trump’s roughly 74.22–74.23 million, and Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, a decisive Electoral College margin that produced the presidency [1]. These counts are reported in an “Official 2020 Presidential General Election Results” dataset and are cited by multiple analyses as the factual baseline for comparing subsequent changes in turnout and vote choice [1]. Establishing 2020 as the factual reference point matters because all 2024 comparisons are measured against those totals and turnout patterns, including demographic breakdowns such as religious turnout noted in supplementary reporting [5].
3. 2024 Results: Converging Reports, Small Numerical Divergences
The supplied 2024 reporting converges on the same headline—a Trump popular‑vote victory—but shows small numerical divergence in reported totals. One December 2024 piece reported Trump at about 76.9 million and Harris at about 74.4 million, describing the race as “tight” and still tightening at publication [4]. A January 2025 report put Trump at 77,303,573 (49.9%) and Harris at 75,019,257 (48.4%), noting this marked the first Republican popular‑vote win in twenty years [3]. A June 2025 study summarized a 1.5 percentage‑point Trump margin—49.8% to 48.3%—and attributed the victory to retention of 2020 Trump voters plus gains from new and returning voters [6]. These differences reflect post‑election updates, rounding, and reporting windows rather than conflicting outcomes.
4. Reconciling Discrepancies: Timing, Rounding, and Reporting Windows
Discrepancies across the 2024 totals in the sources are explainable by reporting date differences and subsequent certified updates: a December 2024 snapshot captured provisional counts as tallies tightened, a January 2025 report reflected updated certified totals, and a June 2025 study analyzed turnout and shifts after full data were available [4] [3] [6]. Another source provides a comparative table of 2020 and 2024 popular votes that aligns with the broader narrative—Biden’s larger 2020 popular vote and Trump’s narrower 2024 win with fewer votes than Biden had in 2020 [2]. The pattern across sources indicates consistent direction—Trump reversed the 2020 popular‑vote deficit in 2024—while minor numeric differences are procedural artifacts of evolving counts and analysis windows.
5. Contextual Implications and What the Numbers Leave Unsaid
The supplied analyses highlight turnout dynamics and demographic shifts as explanatory factors: one study emphasizes Trump retaining most 2020 supporters and adding new or returning voters to secure a popular‑vote edge, while other reporting points to demographic segments such as frequent worshippers as key parts of Trump’s 2020 coalition [6] [5]. What the supplied sources do not settle is the granular county‑level shifts, precinct irregularities, or the full certified post‑recount adjustments; they also do not uniformly report exact certified totals in the same snapshot, which matters for precise margins [4] [3] [2]. Readers should note that headline outcomes are consistent across reporting, but fine‑grained electoral mechanics require official state certifications and aggregated federal summaries to definitively lock down final counts.
6. Bottom Line and Where to Look Next
Bottom line: the supplied documents establish Biden’s 2020 popular‑vote advantage of roughly seven million votes and Trump’s 2024 popular‑vote victory by about 1.5 percentage points with totals in the 76.9–77.3 million range for Trump and 74.4–75.0 million for Harris, with minor numeric variation due to reporting timing [1] [4] [3] [2]. For readers seeking final, certified totals and precinct‑level reconciliation, follow state certification notices and aggregate post‑certification summaries; the materials provided here frame the central facts and explain why reporting windows produce the observed numeric differences [6] [1].