How many electoral votes must a candidate for President get in order to win the election?

270 electoral

votes in the Electoral College are needed to win the U.S.

presidency. Each state has electoral votes equal to the total of

the 2 representative the state has in the U.S. Senate plus the

number of representative the state has in the House of

Representatives. Since every state has two senators and at least

one representative to the House, every state has at least 3

electoral votes. The District of Columbia gets 3 electoral

votes. Therefore, the total number of electoral votes is 538 - 100

(senators) + 435 (representatives) + 3 (for DC). A majority is

270 - one more than half of the total number of 538.