Joe Biden won the presidential election with 81,282,896 votes. That was 7,060,412 more votes than Donald Trump’s total. Biden won the electoral college by a margin of 306 to 232. Biden’s real landslide was in California. The state gave him 55 electoral votes, which was 18% of his total. He won the state by a stunning margin of 5,103,821, which was 72% of his national margin.

Of course, the math does not work that way. However, it does show the outsized role the nation’s largest state by population played. Biden’s net margin of the popular vote was a combination of the states he did win and the result of states where he lost based on raw vote total.

However, there were not many big states base on population where Biden’s loss on a raw vote basis was large. His deficit was 475,669 in Ohio, where he got 2,679,175. He lost Texas by 631,221 votes against his 5,259,126 total. Finally, he lost Florida by 371,686 against his total of 5,297,045.

In the balance of the states, Trump took the raw vote margin was much smaller.

Biden’s other huge win beyond California was New York State. His margin there was 1,993,776, against his total of 5,244,206.

The Biden California margin would be nearly impossible in any other state. It has 39,512,223, which is 12% of the national total of 331,808,807

The Mercury News framed the historic voter count and margin:

So many Californians voted this year that Joe Biden — who won here in a landslide — became the first presidential candidate in the state to ever top more than 10 million votes. President Donald Trump eclipsed 5.5 million votes — a million more than he received four years ago and more than any Republican ever in a state that’s home to Ronald Reagan.

In other words, Trump also did well in California–sort of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.