Confusion is spreading online about how many votes Donald Trump will be awarded in the Electoral College following his victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Dozens of social media posts argue that Trump will not just receive electoral votes from the states in which he won majorities, but also from Democratic-leaning states that have passed national popular vote legislation in recent years.
“This is not a fake map. This is the actual outcome of the 2024 election after the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is enforced by its signatories,” reads one post attached to a map showing Trump winning the Electoral College by more than 500 electoral votes. “By mandate of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, Donald Trump will win this election 533 to 5 in the electoral college. WOW!” reads a similar post.
The posts are false. While some states have passed laws that would award their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote, the legislation is not yet in effect.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) was created in 2006 as a framework by which individual state legislatures could pass legislation to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in presidential elections. By committing states to grant their electoral votes based on the overall popular vote, the NPVIC would achieve the de facto result of a national popular vote while circumventing the need to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College. “The National Popular Vote law will guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” the NPVIC says on its website. “It will apply the one-person-one-vote principle to presidential elections, and make every vote equal.”
Since 2006, 17 states—including New York and California—and the District of Columbia have enacted national popular vote legislation. However, the compact would take effect only after enough jurisdictions to make up a majority of the Electoral College have passed qualifying legislation—a benchmark that has not been reached. As of this week’s election, the jurisdictions that have passed national popular vote laws represent only 209 of the 270 electoral votes necessary for the compact to go into effect.
As of November 7—two days after final votes were cast in the 2024 presidential election—Donald Trump had won approximately 73 million votes nationwide compared to Kamala Harris’ 68.4 million. He’s leading the Electoral College vote count 295-226 per the New York Times and Associated Press at the time of publication. Trump’s margin of victory in the popular vote will likely shrink over the coming days as heavily Democratic California continues to tally its ballots. According to the Associated Press, only about 55 percent of California’s approximately 18 million ballots had been counted as of Thursday afternoon, with Harris expected to win significantly more of the outstanding vote than Trump.
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