Trump, the Republican candidate with the most votes in history

Last November 5, Donald Trump won at least 76,433,539 votes (small percentages in California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska are still being counted at the time of closing this news), setting a new record for the number of votes by which a Republican reached the White House. In fact, this is the best record for a conservative candidate, since the highest mark so far was obtained by Trump himself in his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden. Then, his 74,223,975 ballots fell far short of Biden's 81,283,501, the absolute record. Despite this difference, the presidency was decided by a few ballots in several states.

Trump returned to the Oval Office with 50.2% of the ballots of the 151,657,903 voters who participated in the election. A turnout inferior by 6,552,075 to that of four years ago. In addition, his victory in the seven swing states allowed him to reach 312 electoral votes, surpassing Biden's 306 in 2020.

In fact, the third best record for a Republican candidate is also held by the tycoon. The 62,984,829 votes that propelled him to the presidency in 2016 surpass the previous Republican record by almost a million: the 62,040,610 with which George W. Bush won re-election in 2004 against John Kerry. Between the two, John McCain crashed dismally against the first Barack Obama in 2008, failing to reach 60 million votes, while Mitt Romney neared 61 million, however, despite narrowing the popular vote margin, Romney was still decisively defeated in electoral pledges.

Nixon, winner by highest percentage; Reagan record number of pledges

However, Trump is not the Republican who won the highest percentage of popular vote relative to turnout, nor the one who won the most electoral votes. In terms of percentage points, Richard Nixon got 60.67% of the ballots validated in 1972, while Warren Harding got 60.35% in 1920. In third place is the 58.77% with which Ronald Reagan won in 1984 the largest victory in the country's history in number of electoral votes: 525.

The second Republican with the most electoral votes obtained was Nixon (520) in 1972 (the second best historical result in this field was for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, with 523), followed by Reagan's 489 in his first term (1980) and Dwight Einsenhower's 457 in 1956.