The Associated Press (AP) provides the data that you find in the U.S. election results feature on Google Search. AP is a trusted source of information on election night, with a history of providing accurate election results dating back 176 years.
AP collects and verifies U.S. election results in every county, parish, city, and town across the country. It covers races down to the legislative level in every state and this year will declare winners in about 5,000 contested races.
Learn more about AP’s role in elections.
Types of U.S. election data
Google Search features data from AP to provide you with up-to-date information on current election results. When you search for election results on Google, you might find information from AP like:
- Vote counts
- Percentage reporting
- Important: To estimate how much of the vote has been counted, AP uses information from voter turnout in recent elections, advance voting, and early returns after the polls close on the day of an election. Depending on the election contest, this information will be available at the state, county, and U.S. congressional district levels. Learn how AP estimates the number of votes counted.
- Electoral votes won in the presidential contest
- In Maine and Nebraska, electoral votes are split between the winner of the popular vote within each congressional district and two at-large electoral votes allocated to the winner of the statewide popular vote. As a result, multiple candidates may win electoral votes in Maine and Nebraska. In these states, AP will allocate electoral votes at the time of each presidential race call, i.e., statewide and in each congressional district.
- All other states, except Maine and Nebraska, have a winner-take-all system, in which the winner of the statewide popular vote receives all electoral votes for that state.
- Key races
- AP designates key races based on publicly available polling, historical voting trends, voter interest, and analysis by AP’s decision team, including a race’s potential role in deciding control of Congress or the presidency.
- Ballot measures
- Some states require more than a majority vote (50%) for a ballot measure to pass. In certain states, there may be different thresholds for different types of ballot measures to pass.
- Candidates, including their name, image, and party affiliation
- For the U.S. presidential election, AP’s decision team selects candidates to include in the national summary view based on voter interest. Factors assessed by AP include campaign activity, performance in public polling, political history and name recognition among voters, debate appearances, and fundraising. You may see different views of the election results feature for candidates AP has assessed as notable.
- Important: You might not find images for every candidate. AP strives for comprehensive candidate image coverage and provides a photo or a headshot when provided by the campaign.
- Flipped seats
- For the U.S. Senate and U.S. House contests, if AP calls a race for a candidate from a different political party than the incumbent for that seat, the race will be labeled as a “flipped seat.”
- Important: This “flipped seat” designation applies in most states, except those that have implemented new congressional district boundaries since the 2022 midterm elections. The “flipped seat” designation also applies in contests involving an independent incumbent who caucuses with a political party, or an independent candidate who plans to caucus with a political party. AP determines the political party with which an independent caucuses, based on that candidate’s public statements.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are parties represented by colors throughout the results feature?How are candidate lists ordered?Candidates from the Democratic Party will be represented in blue, while candidates from the Republican Party will be represented in red. Independents and other parties will be represented in yellow.
Which write-in candidates might appear?Before results are available, notable candidates, as determined by AP, are listed in alphabetical order by first name. After results are available, in the national view, all candidates are listed in order of electoral votes won for the presidential contest. In the state view, candidates are listed in order of vote percentage won among counted ballots.
Some write-in candidates may appear in the U.S. election results feature on Google, if AP determines that candidate may garner a significant number of write-in votes, and if write-in votes are eligible to be counted and reported in that state.What happens if a candidate drops out?How are recounts handled?All notable candidates, as determined by AP, who appear on a state’s ballot will appear in the candidate result table on the relevant state view. If a candidate appears on a state’s ballot, but the state election office doesn't tabulate their votes because they dropped out or withdrew before Election Day, the candidate won't be shown in the Google Search election results feature.
In the event of a recount for a contest, AP will update the vote count and vote percentage as communicated by election officials. Learn more about how AP handles recounts.How is the party majority in Congress represented?For General Election results for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, the balance of power between the Democratic and Republican parties is shown at the top of the page. This section represents seats that have been called by AP and seats that have been identified by AP as sure to be won by a specific party, such as when a contest is between two or more candidates of the same party. Seats held by independent members of Congress who caucus with a party, as designated by AP, are also included. The balance of power reflects the party affiliations of candidates and officeholders at the time of the election.Which special U.S. Senate elections are shown?Only the U.S. Senate special election contests for terms that begin in January 2025 are included.How are district and county-level results represented in the map?Once AP calls a U.S. House race, the congressional district will display a vibrant color for the corresponding political party on the national and state-level map. For statewide contests, election results at the county level are available on the state-level map. Counties display a vibrant party color once AP has called a statewide race and the county has 100% reporting.How often the data is updated
Data changes rapidly when election results are coming in and is updated roughly every minute. As results come in, election data may be temporarily unavailable in Search due to a variety of reasons, like vote counting not having started yet or AP waiting on results from state election officials. Within Google’s election results feature, the latest results are updated across all the sections at roughly the same time, with an occasional difference of up to a few minutes in updates between sections, leading to potential temporary differences in the results displayed across the feature.
Once most results are in, AP will continue to update vote counts to reflect the latest data from state election officials. For example, AP will show adjusted vote counts after recounts are complete, and will show certified vote counts as certified results become available across counties, contests, and at the state and county levels, and for individual contests for all states and the District of Columbia. AP will stop updating vote counts after state certification. Although some sources may show slightly different vote counts due to mixed sources or incremental updates, AP provides results in this way to ensure data integrity and consistency. Learn more about AP’s process for counting the vote and calling races.
For accessibility reasons, users navigating by keyboard or screen-reader devices may choose to pause data updates so they can read the full feature without interruption. Once data updates are paused, new data won't flow into the feature until data updates are turned back on by the user or the web page is reloaded.