How many electoral votes are there?

There are 538 electoral votes in the Electoral College. This number is set by the structure of the Electoral College described in Article II of the Constitution, the 12th Amendment, and the 23rd Amendment. The total comes from three sources. There are 435 House of Representatives electoral votes, equal to the total number of voting representatives in the House. The number of representatives in the House has been fixed at 435 by the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, with each state's share allocated by population. There are 100 Senate electoral votes, equal to the total number of senators. Each of the 50 states has two senators, regardless of population, for a total of 100. There are 3 electoral votes for the District of Columbia, granted by the 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961. The amendment gives D.C. as many electors as it would have if it were a state, but no more than the least populous state. Since the least populous state always has three electors (one representative plus two senators), D.C. always gets three electors.

Adding 435 plus 100 plus 3 gives the total of 538 electoral votes. To win the presidency, a candidate must receive at least 270 electoral votes, a majority of 538. The 270 majority threshold is what shapes presidential campaign strategy. Candidates focus on states where they have a realistic chance of winning, particularly the swing states that are close enough to be competitive. Safe states for one party or the other typically receive less attention.

The total of 538 has been stable since 1961, when D.C. was added. Before then the total was 535, with no electors for D.C. The number could change if Congress changed the size of the House (which it could do by ordinary legislation), or if D.C. were granted statehood (which would give D.C. residents voting representation in Congress and would adjust the electoral count accordingly), or if Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories became states. None of these changes appears imminent at the federal level, though the question of D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood remains an ongoing policy debate.

Each state's number of electors is recalculated after each ten-year census, since the redistribution of House seats among the states changes how many representatives each state has and therefore how many electors each state has.