How does the Electoral College work in U.S. presidential elections?

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The key idea is that the Electoral College assigns electors to states based on their congressional representation. Each state gets a number of electors equal to its total number of Senators (two) plus its number of Representatives. Adding up all states plus the District of Columbia gives 538 electors. A candidate needs a majority (270) of these electoral votes to win. Most states award all of their electors to the statewide winner, though Maine and Nebraska use a district-based method rather than full statewide allocation. This is why the statement that “each state has electors equal to its congressional representation” best describes how the system works. The other options misstate the process: the winner isn’t determined purely by the national popular vote, there isn’t a nationwide direct popular vote, and electors aren’t generally split proportionally by vote shares.