Spending on the 2020 election reached $14.4 billion. This was more than double the amount that was spent on the then record-breaking 2016 president election. [Open Secrets 2/11/21]
The six national fundraising committees of the Democratic and Republican parties raised a combined $2.650 billion. The three Republican committees raised a combined $1.510 billion and the three Democratic committees raised a combined $1.140 billion.
| RNC | $890,495,917 |
| DNC | $490,635,675 |
| NRSC | $338,263,383 |
| DSCC | $303,878,609 |
| NRCC | $280,911,947 |
| DCCC | $345,783,544 |
[Ballotpedia 2/17/2021]
Only 16 Congressional districts in the 2020 election backed a presidential nominee of one party and a House candidate from the other party. Thus just 4% of districts split their tickets which is the smallest share in the last 70 years.
Over the past 20 years the share of districts splitting their House and presidential results between the two major parties has regularly fallen below 20% and 2020 was the 3rd consecutive cycle it fellow below 10%.
Of the 16 seats, Republicans won 9, while Democrats won 7. [FiveThirtyEight]
In 2020, 54% voted in person, 28% voted on election day, 26% voted early in person, and 46% voted by mail/absentee. The following shows the changes in the voting process since 1996.
| 1996 | 2000 | 2004 | 2008 | 2012 | 2016 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On Election Day | 89% | 86% | 79% | 69% | 67% | 60% | 28% |
| Early in-person | 3% | 4% | 8% | 14% | 14% | 19% | 26% |
| Absentee by mail | 8% | 10% | 13% | 16% | 19% | 21% | 46% |
[MIT Election Lab 1/22/21]
In the 2020 general elections, 94% of incumbents nationwide won re-election. This includes races in which incumbents were unopposed. [Ballotpedia 1/21]
The 2020 election was the ninth consecutive presidential election in which the national popular vote margin was smaller than 10 percentage points. [FiveThirtyEight 2/2/21]
197.9 million people live in counties won by President Biden in the 2020 election and 130.3 million people live in counties won by then President Trump, a difference of 67.6 million people. [Brooking 1/21/21]
There are 3143 counties in the United States. From 1980 to 2016, 19 counties voted for the winner of the presidential election every single time. The most impressive of these was Valencia County, New Mexico which voted for the victor in every presidential election from 1952 to 2016.
In 2020, 18 of these 19 “bellwether counties” voted for former President Donald Trump. Only Clallam County in Washington, voted for President Joe Biden. [FiveThirtyEight – Politics Podcast]