Did Democratic nominee and then-sitting Vice President Kamala Harris get 68 million votes in 2024? No, that's not true: In reality, she got more than 75 million, according to data on the Federal Election Commission website. That's fewer than Joe Biden's 2020 total of 81 million, but 7 million more than is claimed by a viral meme.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published on July 10, 2025. It opened:
There needs to be a special counsel to investigate the rigged 2020 election.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
The post shared an image that misrepresented the 2024 federal election returns, implying that the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris only got 68 million votes compared to Biden's 81 million four years earlier.
In reality, according to the Federal Election Commission website (archived here), 75,017,613 Americans voted for Harris, which amounted to 48.32% of all ballots cast in the 2024 presidential election.
Donald Trump, the Republican candidate who won the White House at the time, received 77,302,580 votes, or 49.8%.
In 2020, Democratic winner Joe Biden got 81,283,501 votes (archived here and here), or 51.31%.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks about the United States are here.
Articles concerning the 2024 presidential election can be found here.
