2020 United States presidential election: Difference between revisions

2020 United States presidential election
538 members of the Electoral College; 270 electoral votes needed to win
	Opinion polls
	The electoral map for the 2020 election, based on populations from the 2010 Census.
Incumbent President; Donald Trump; Republican	; ;

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The 2020 United States presidential election is scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, 2020. It will be the 59th quadrennial presidential election. Voters will select presidential electors who in turn on December 14, 2020,^[1] will either elect a new president and vice president or reelect the incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence. The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses are scheduled to be held during the first six months of 2020. This nominating process is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots selecting a slate of delegates to a political party's nominating convention, who then in turn elect their party's nominees for president and vice president.

Donald Trump, the 45th and incumbent president, has launched a reelection campaign for the Republican primaries; several state Republican Party organizations have cancelled their primaries in a show of support for his candidacy.^[2] 29 major candidates launched campaigns for the Democratic nomination, which became the largest field of candidates for any political party in the post-reform period of American politics. The winner of the 2020 presidential election is scheduled to be inaugurated on January 20, 2021.

Background

Procedure

Article Two of the United States Constitution states that for a person to serve as president the individual must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, at least 35 years old and a United States resident for at least 14 years. Candidates for the presidency typically seek the nomination of one of the various political parties of the United States, in which case each party develops a method (such as a primary election) to choose the candidate the party deems best suited to run for the position. The primary elections are usually indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The party's delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party's behalf. The presidential nominee typically chooses a vice presidential running mate to form that party's ticket, who is then ratified by the delegates (with the exception of the Libertarian Party, which nominates its vice presidential candidate by delegate vote regardless of the presidential nominee's preference). The general election in November is also an indirect election, in which voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors then directly elect the president and vice president.^[3] If no candidate receives the minimum 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, the United States House of Representatives will select the president from the three candidates who received the most electoral votes, and the United States Senate will select the vice president from the candidates who received the two highest totals.

In August 2018, the Democratic National Committee voted to disallow superdelegates from voting on the first ballot of the nominating process, beginning with the 2020 election. This would require a candidate to win a majority of pledged delegates from the assorted primary elections in order to win the party's nomination. The last time this did not occur was the nomination of Adlai Stevenson II at the 1952 Democratic National Convention.^[4]

Several Republican state committees are reportedly contemplating scrapping their 2020 primary/caucus, while others have already preemptively done so.^[5] They have cited the fact that Republicans canceled several state primaries when George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush sought a second term in 1992 and 2004, respectively; and Democrats scrapped some of their primaries when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were seeking reelection in 1996 and 2012, respectively.^[6]^[7]

On August 26, 2019, the Maine legislature passed a bill adopting ranked-choice voting both for presidential primaries and for the general election.^[8]^[9] On September 6, 2019, Governor Janet Mills allowed the bill to become law without her signature, which delayed it from taking effect until after the 2020 Democratic primary in March, but puts Maine on track to be the first state to use ranked-choice voting for a presidential general election. The law continues the use of the congressional district method for the allocation of electors, as Maine and Nebraska have used in recent elections.^[10] The change could potentially delay the projection of the winner(s) of Maine's electoral votes for days after election day,^[11] and will also complicate interpretation of the national popular vote.^[12]

The Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution states that an individual cannot be elected to the presidency more than twice. This prohibits former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama from being elected president again. Former president Jimmy Carter, having served only a single term as president, is not constitutionally prohibited from being elected to another term in the 2020 election, though he has no plans to do so, saying, "95 is out of the question. I'm having a hard time walking. I think the time has passed for me to be involved actively in politics, much less run for president."^[13]

Demographic trends

The age group of what will then be people in the 18 to 45-year-old bracket is expected to represent just under 40 percent of the United States' eligible voters in 2020. It is expected that more than 30 percent of eligible American voters will be nonwhite.^[14]

A bipartisan report indicates that changes in voter demographics since the 2016 election could impact the results of the 2020 election. African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and other ethnic minorities, as well as "whites with a college degree", are expected to all increase their percentage of national eligible voters by 2020, while "whites without a college degree" will decrease. This shift is potentially an advantage for the Democratic nominee; however, due to geographical differences, this could still lead to President Trump (or a different Republican nominee) winning the Electoral College while still losing the popular vote, possibly by an even larger margin than in 2016.^[15]

Simultaneous elections

The presidential election will occur simultaneously with elections to the Senate and the House of Representatives. Gubernatorial and legislative elections will also be held in several states. Following the election, the United States House will redistribute the seats among the 50 states based on the results of the 2020 United States Census, and the states will conduct a redistricting of Congressional and state legislative districts. In most states the governor and the state legislature conduct the redistricting (although some states have redistricting commissions), and often a party that wins a presidential election experiences a coattail effect which also helps other candidates of that party win elections.^[16] Therefore, the party that wins the 2020 presidential election could also win a significant advantage in the drawing of new Congressional and state legislative districts that would stay in effect until the 2032 elections.^[17]

Impeachment

The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump on two counts on December 18, 2019.^[18] The trial in the Senate began on January 21, 2020,^[19] and ended on February 5, resulting in acquittal by the United States Senate.^[20]

This is the first time a president has been impeached during their first term and while running for a second term.^[21] Trump continued to hold campaign rallies during the impeachment.^[22]^[23] This is also the first time since the modern presidential primaries were established in 1911 that a president has been subjected to impeachment while the primary season was underway.^[24] The impeachment process overlapped with the primary campaigns, forcing senators running for the Democratic nomination to remain in Washington for the trial in the days before and after the Iowa caucuses.^[25]^[26]

Republican Party nominations

Donald Trump is formally seeking re-election.^[27]^[28] His re-election campaign has been ongoing since his victory in 2016, leading pundits to describe his tactic of holding rallies continuously throughout his presidency as a "never-ending campaign".^[29] On January 20, 2017, at 5:11 p.m., he submitted a letter as a substitute of FEC Form 2, by which he reached the legal threshold for filing, in compliance with the Federal Election Campaign Act.^[30]

Beginning in August 2017, reports arose that members of the Republican Party were preparing a "shadow campaign" against Trump, particularly from the moderate or establishment wings of the party. Then-Arizona senator John McCain said, "Republicans see weakness in this president."^[31]^[32] Maine senator Susan Collins, Kentucky senator Rand Paul, and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie all expressed doubts in 2017 that Trump would be the 2020 nominee, with Collins stating "it's too difficult to say."^[33]^[34] Senator Jeff Flake claimed in 2017 that Trump was "inviting" a primary challenger by the way he was governing.^[35] Longtime political strategist Roger Stone, however, predicted in May 2018 that Trump might not seek a second term were he to succeed in keeping all his campaign promises and "mak[ing] America great again".^[36]

The Republican National Committee unofficially endorsed Trump on January 25, 2019.^[37]

Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld became Trump's first major challenger in the Republican primaries following an announcement on April 15, 2019.^[38] Weld, who was the Libertarian Party's nominee for vice president in 2016, is considered a long shot because his libertarian views on several political positions such as abortion rights, gay marriage and marijuana legalization conflict with traditionalist conservative positions.^[39]

Former Illinois representative Joe Walsh launched a primary challenge on August 25, 2019, saying, "I'm going to do whatever I can. I don't want [Trump] to win. The country cannot afford to have him win. If I'm not successful, I'm not voting for him."^[40] Walsh ended his presidential bid on February 7, 2020, after drawing around 1% support in the Iowa caucuses. Walsh declared that "nobody can beat Trump in a Republican primary" because the Republican Party was now "a cult" of Trump. According to Walsh, Trump supporters had become "followers" who think that Trump "can do no wrong", after absorbing misinformation "from 'conservative' media. They don't know what the truth is and — more importantly — they don't care."^[41]

On September 8, 2019, former South Carolina governor and representative Mark Sanford officially announced that he would be another Republican primary challenger to Trump.^[42] He dropped out of the race on November 12, 2019.^[43]

Declared major candidates

Name	Born	Most recent position	Home state	Announcement date	Campaign Withdrawal date	Bound delegates^[44]		Popular vote^[44]	Contests won	Running mate	Ref.
Name	Born	Most recent position	Home state	Announcement date	Campaign Withdrawal date	Soft count^[a]	Hard count^[b]	Popular vote^[44]	Contests won	Running mate	Ref.
Donald Trump	June 14, 1946 (age 74) Queens, New York	45th President of the United States (2017–2021) Incumbent	Florida^[46]^[47]	June 18, 2019^[48]	Campaign Secured nomination: March 17, 2020	2,310 (90.59%)	2,339 (91.73%)	18,159,752 (93.99% )	56 (AK, AL, AR, AS, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, GU, HI,^[49] IA,^[50] ID, IL, IN, KS,^[51] KY, LA,MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MP, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH,^[52] NJ, NM, NV,^[53] NY,^[54] OH, OK, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VI, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY)	Mike Pence	^[55]

Withdrew during primaries

Candidate	Born	Experience	State	Campaign announced	Campaign suspended	Article	Popular vote	Delegates	Ref.
Bill Weld	July 31, 1945 (age 75) Smithtown, New York	Governor of Massachusetts (1991–1997) Libertarian nominee for Vice President in 2016	Massachusetts	April 15, 2019	March 18, 2020 (endorsed Biden)^[56]	Campaign FEC filing^[57]	454,402 (2.35%)	1	^[58]^[59]
Rocky De La Fuente	October 10, 1954 (age 65) San Diego, California	Businessman and real estate developer Reform nominee for President in 2016 & 2020^[60] Perennial candidate	California	May 16, 2019	August 24, 2020 (ran as Alliance, Reform, and American Independent)	Campaign FEC filing^[61]	108,357 (0.57%)	0	^[62]^[63]
Joe Walsh	December 27, 1961 (age 58) North Barrington, Illinois	U.S. Representative from IL-08 (2011–2013) Talk radio host	Illinois	August 25, 2019	February 7, 2020 (endorsed Biden)^[64]	Campaign FEC filing^[65]	173,519 (0.92%)	0	^[66]^[67]
Mark Sanford	May 28, 1960 (age 60) Fort Lauderdale, Florida	U.S. Representative from SC-01 (1995–2001, 2013–2019) Governor of South Carolina (2003–2011)	South Carolina	September 8, 2019	November 12, 2019	Campaign FEC filing^[68]	4,258 (0.02%)	0	^[69]^[70]

Withdrew before primaries

Section 'withdrew' not found

Endorsements

Democratic Party nomination

After Hillary Clinton's loss in the previous election, the Democratic Party was seen largely as leaderless^[71] and fractured between the centrist Clinton wing and the more progressive Sanders wing of the party, echoing the rift brought up in the 2016 primary election.^[72]^[73]

This divide between the establishment and progressive wings of the party has been reflected in several elections leading up to the 2020 primaries, most notably in 2017 with the election for DNC chair between moderate-backed Tom Perez and progressive-backed Keith Ellison:^[74] Perez was elected chairman, and Ellison was appointed the deputy chair, a largely ceremonial role. In 2018, several U.S. House districts that Democrats hoped to gain from the Republican majority had contentious primary elections. These clashes were described by Politico's Elena Schneider as a "Democratic civil war."^[75] Meanwhile, there has been a general shift to the left in regards to college tuition, healthcare, and immigration among Democrats in the Senate, likely to build up credentials for the upcoming primary election.^[76]^[77]

The 2020 primary field has broken the record for the largest field under the modern presidential primary system previously set in the 2016 GOP primary, which consisted of 17 major candidates.^[78] Several female candidates entered the race, increasing the likelihood of the Democrats nominating a woman for the second time in a row.^[79]

The topic of age has been brought up among the three candidates widely considered to be the front-runners: former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who will be 78, 71, and 79 respectively on inauguration day. Former Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid described the trio as "an old folks' home", expressing a need for fresh faces to step up and lead the party.^[80]

There are 9 major candidates running active campaigns as of February 11, 2020.^[81]