Most electoral votes ever won by a president
Who won the most electoral votes in a presidential election?
Ronald Reagan, with 525 electoral votes in his 1984 landslide over Walter Mondale (who won only Minnesota and Washington, D.C.). Reagan also won 58.8% of the national popular vote that year. Franklin D. Roosevelt is second, with 523 electoral votes in 1936.
Ronald Reagan’s 525 electoral votes in 1984 are the most any presidential candidate has ever won; Franklin Roosevelt’s 523 in 1936 is the only total that comes close.
| # | Candidate | Election | Electoral votes | Popular vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ronald Reagan R | 1984 | 525 | 58.8% |
| 2 | Franklin D. Roosevelt D | 1936 | 523 | 60.8% |
| 3 | Richard Nixon R | 1972 | 520 | 60.7% |
| 4 | Ronald Reagan R | 1980 | 489 | 50.7% |
| 5 | Lyndon B. Johnson D | 1964 | 486 | 61.1% |
| 6 | Franklin D. Roosevelt D | 1932 | 472 | 57.3% |
| 7 | Dwight D. Eisenhower R | 1956 | 457 | 57.4% |
| 8 | Franklin D. Roosevelt D | 1940 | 449 | 54.7% |
| 9 | Herbert Hoover R | 1928 | 444 | 58.0% |
| 10 | Dwight D. Eisenhower R | 1952 | 442 | 55.2% |
| 11 | Woodrow Wilson D | 1912 | 435 | 41.8% |
| 12 | Franklin D. Roosevelt D | 1944 | 432 | 53.3% |
| 13 | George H. W. Bush R | 1988 | 426 | 53.4% |
| 14 | Warren G. Harding R | 1920 | 404 | 60.3% |
| 15 | Calvin Coolidge R | 1924 | 382 | 54.1% |
| 16 | Bill Clinton D | 1996 | 379 | 49.2% |
| 17 | Bill Clinton D | 1992 | 370 | 43.0% |
| 18 | Barack Obama D | 2008 | 365 | 52.9% |
| 19 | Theodore Roosevelt R | 1904 | 336 | 56.4% |
| 20 | Barack Obama D | 2012 | 332 | 51.1% |
| 21 | William Howard Taft R | 1908 | 321 | 51.6% |
| 22 | Donald Trump R | 2024 | 312 | 49.8% |
| 23 | Joe Biden D | 2020 | 306 | 51.3% |
| 24 | Donald Trump R | 2016 | 304 | 46.1% |
| 25 | Harry S. Truman D | 1948 | 303 | 49.4% |
How this ranking is measured
Ranked by raw electoral votes won in a single election. The size of the electoral college has grown over time, so totals are not perfectly comparable across centuries. Reagan’s 525 (1984) and FDR’s 523 (1936) are the modern records. The popular-vote result is shown for context.