Based on the way that the electoral votes are divided up today, there must be a minimum percentage of the popular vote that would guarantee an electoral victory. IOW, if a candidate wins 90% of the popular vote, it’s inevitable that he or she would win the electoral vote. However, if a candidate wins 51%, it’s far from guaranteed. There must be a minimum percentage of the popular vote that will guarantee an electoral victory. Has anyone calculated this?
It really depends on turnout in the various states. Someone could win with 12 votes nationwide. If 12 people are the only person voting and they all vote for the same person in. CA=55 Fl=27 IL=21 OH=20 PA=21 NY=31 TX=34 MI=17 NJ=15 NC=15 VA=13 WY=3 for 272 electoral votes.
http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/calculator.html
So unless we know how many people are voting in each state there is really no answer
It’s not so much the total popular vote percentage…but WHERE you won that popular vote.
You’d have to figure out the top electoral vote states (California, New York, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania etc…) and add up enough to get your electoral vote win (270). Then figure out the total of 50% +1 votes in each of those states…that’s the minimum number of POPULAR voters needed to reach electoral vote majority. Then figure out what percentage THAT is of the total popular vote.
Electoral votes at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781447.html
My quick calcs say the most “efficient way” is to win
Calif, NY, FL, Ill, PENN, Mich, NJ, NC, GA, MA and one more state like Arizona.
On review it seems like deadeyesdad got the numbers closer than I did…same idea though.
Looking over the #'s I got it down to 11 by replacing Va(13) with GA(15) and dropping that loser in WY
You don’t even need 50%+1 to win the popular vote. All you need is one more vote than any other candidate. Don’t forget, in 3-way races both Richard Nixon (1968) and Bill Clinton (1992) won fairly comfortable electoral margins with about 43% of the popular vote. Truman (1948) won in a 4-way race.
D’oh I stand corrected…ya little nit picker you. 
The problem may be more difficult or perhaps easier – in about half the states the electors are not legally required to vote for the candidate they were elected to represent.
If the OP is wants to know what percentage of the overall popular vote you’d have to get to ensure victory in a U.S. presidental election, the theoretical answer is close to 100%.
As beagledave and deadeyesdad point out, you can win the election by capturing just a handful of key states. Suppose, however, that you get 50%+1 votes in these states and lose 100% of the votes in every other state. All else being equal, you’d then become president with about 25% of the total popular vote.
But it’s even worse than that. Suppose (very hypothetically) that there was a really lousy turnout and only one person voted in New York, California, etc. – all the minimum states you must win to take the presidency. These ten or so people all happened to vote for you but you didn’t get any votes from anyone else.
As a result, you’d become president with about .00001% of the popular vote.
Actually (as kunilou pointed out to me) if you have a significant third party candidate, you don’t even need 50% +1. The actual number would depend on how many candidates were getting votes in a particular state. As a practical matter, I think you’d probably need to get at least 40% of the popular vote in that state to gain their electoral votes.
Assuming:
- The voter turnout is the same as it was in 2000
- All the voters voted for one of only two candidates
You could win in 2004 by winning California (55), Texas (34), New York (31), Florida (27), Illinois (21), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Michigan (17), Georgia (15), New Jersey (15), and North Carolina (15).
You could win these states with 5,482,929 + 3,203,819 + 3,411,155 + 2,981,556 + 2,371,062 + 2,456,560 + 2,352,729 + 2,116,356 + 1,298,403 + 1,593,614 + 1,455,632 = 28,723,815. Divided into a total number of votes of 105,417,116, you’ve won with about 27.2 percent of the votes.
(… further reason to get rid of the electoral college system …)
So if you can’t win under this scenario if you have 72.8 percent of the votes, you’re going to need quite a bit more than that to “guarantee” a win.