The New York Times has reported that approximately 95.0% of all votes have been counted, with Harris receiving 71.7 million votes and Trump around 75 million votes:
This 95.0% represents 148.8 million votes, indicating that there are approximately 7.8 million votes yet to be counted (calculated as 148.8 million / 0.95 * 0.05), bringing the total estimated number of votes to around 156.6 million. (All figures are approximate.)
The majority of the outstanding votes are in California (4.2 million remaining, with 25% of votes still uncounted); there are also significant numbers from Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. These states lean towards the Democratic party; California and Washington have seen a split of roughly 60-40 Democrat, while the other states are closer to 50-50 (with Utah leaning 60-40 Republican). This suggests that the 7.8 million votes will likely be split around 4.3 million for Harris and 3.3 million for Trump. This projection points towards a final total of approximately 76 million votes for Harris and 78.3 million votes for Trump, with a margin of a few hundred thousand votes. (It’s possible that 2.3 million votes or more will go to third-party candidates.)
It is crucial to compare the final results of the 2020 election with the projected final results of 2024 (or wait until the 2024 final results are available), rather than comparing the 2020 final results with early 2024 results as discussed in this New York Times article.
