At the 2015 United States general election, first-term Chancellor Barack Obama was able to form government for a second term by entering a coalition with the Greens. It had been apparent on election night the Social Democrats had lost their near-majority status and would need to enter formal coalition talks. Also at the 2015 election, independent MC for Manhattan West Michael Bloomberg was unseated by Cynthia Nixon who won the seat for the Greens. This constituted the first Congress since 1923, to have no non-partisan independent MCs. For the first time ever in U.S. history, two consecutive Congresses featured no independent MCs although independent candidate for Manhattan West, Donald Trump, was the closest independent candidate for a constituency seat.
Barack Obama announced a coalition with the Greens in early November, three weeks after the election.
===Union Instability===
Since the formation of the Southern Social Democrats in the early 1970s as a separate brand of Social Democratic candidates, the demarcation line had been strictly enforced. The line explicitly curtailed the national Social Democratic Party from attempting to coerce the affiliation of state, county or sub-branches of the Southern Social Democrats to defect and instead elect delegates and participate in the SDP ecosystem. This line was first eroded at the 1998 Conference, where a majority of delegates from Florida voted to amend the provisions required, and return the state branch of the Southern Social Democrats into the national Social Democratic Party. In 2004, efforts to draw away Texas, narrowly failed. In 2012, shortly into the Obama Chancellery, the Georgia branch of the SSD defected and in 2014, Oklahoma followed suit - though the two did so for wildly different reasons. In Georgia, an influx of urban Social Democrats, with opinions closer to the national median than the Southern median took control of the branch while in Oklahoma, the continued decline of the party saw cosmopolitan delegations outweigh conservative factions and in turn both branches were returned into the SDP proper by the 2015 general election.
At the 2015 general election, the Union was re-elected to a second term in coalition with the Greens. Then-Chancellor Barack Obama retired in 2017 and was succeeded by Obama-ally Terry McAuliffe of Virginia. McAuliffe had overseen the affiliation of the SSD-Virginia to the SDP ahead of the 2016 Social Democratic Union Convention. The continued decline of the SSD was met with strong demands from SSD MCs, hence McAuliffe who had been the subject of disapproval by SSD leadership and caucus members, was dismissed six months into his tenure. He would be succeeded by Bill Nelson (MC for Florida). Nelson was widely seen as a stand-in among the public due to his age and hence, the anticipation was that there would be a full party ballot for Union Leader in the 2018 convention. This proved inaccurate, as with no consensus candidate as an alternative, no ballot was ordered for the leadership of the party.
In 2019, the Nelson Government was dealt a serious defeat in the [[2019 Zanuck special election]]. SDP Incumbent Gaston Caperton had died of a heart attack and at the eventual by-election, the SDP experienced the largest single-seat swing for a political party since the adoption of full preferential voting. The result was seen as a wide rebuke of the collective SDP/SSD union brand and triggered calls for Nelson's resignation. At the ensuing leadership election, an upset was seen as backbencher John Fetterman, MC for Stern; was elected leader of the SDP/SSD.
Upon Fetterman's swearing-in, the Union vote experienced a fall in opinion polling to below 30%.
==Constituencies changing parties==
''See Also: [[Post-election pendulum for the 2020 United States general election]]''
Members in italics did not re-contest their Congressional seats at this election.
Members in italics did not re-contest their Congressional seats at this election.
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|}
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==Background==
===Previous Election===
At the 2015 United States general election, first-term Chancellor Barack Obama was able to form government for a second term by entering a coalition with the Greens. It had been apparent on election night the Social Democrats had lost their near-majority status and would need to enter formal coalition talks. Also at the 2015 election, independent MC for Manhattan West Michael Bloomberg was unseated by Cynthia Nixon who won the seat for the Greens. This constituted the first Congress since 1923, to have no non-partisan independent MCs. For the first time ever in U.S. history, two consecutive Congresses featured no independent MCs although independent candidate for Manhattan West, Donald Trump, was the closest independent candidate for a constituency seat.
Barack Obama announced a coalition with the Greens in early November, three weeks after the election.
===Union Instability===
Since the formation of the Southern Social Democrats in the early 1970s as a separate brand of Social Democratic candidates, the demarcation line had been strictly enforced. The line explicitly curtailed the national Social Democratic Party from attempting to coerce the affiliation of state, county or sub-branches of the Southern Social Democrats to defect and instead elect delegates and participate in the SDP ecosystem. This line was first eroded at the 1998 Conference, where a majority of delegates from Florida voted to amend the provisions required, and return the state branch of the Southern Social Democrats into the national Social Democratic Party. In 2004, efforts to draw away Texas, narrowly failed. In 2012, shortly into the Obama Chancellery, the Georgia branch of the SSD defected and in 2014, Oklahoma followed suit - though the two did so for wildly different reasons. In Georgia, an influx of urban Social Democrats, with opinions closer to the national median than the Southern median took control of the branch while in Oklahoma, the continued decline of the party saw cosmopolitan delegations outweigh conservative factions and in turn both branches were returned into the SDP proper by the 2015 general election.
At the 2015 general election, the Union was re-elected to a second term in coalition with the Greens. Then-Chancellor Barack Obama retired in 2017 and was succeeded by Obama-ally Terry McAuliffe of Virginia. McAuliffe had overseen the affiliation of the SSD-Virginia to the SDP ahead of the 2016 Social Democratic Union Convention. The continued decline of the SSD was met with strong demands from SSD MCs, hence McAuliffe who had been the subject of disapproval by SSD leadership and caucus members, was dismissed six months into his tenure. He would be succeeded by Bill Nelson (MC for Florida). Nelson was widely seen as a stand-in among the public due to his age and hence, the anticipation was that there would be a full party ballot for Union Leader in the 2018 convention. This proved inaccurate, as with no consensus candidate as an alternative, no ballot was ordered for the leadership of the party.
In 2019, the Nelson Government was dealt a serious defeat in the [[2019 Zanuck special election]]. SDP Incumbent Gaston Caperton had died of a heart attack and at the eventual by-election, the SDP experienced the largest single-seat swing for a political party since the adoption of full preferential voting. The result was seen as a wide rebuke of the collective SDP/SSD union brand and triggered calls for Nelson's resignation. At the ensuing leadership election, an upset was seen as backbencher John Fetterman, MC for Stern; was elected leader of the SDP/SSD.
Upon Fetterman's swearing-in, the Union vote experienced a fall in opinion polling to below 30%.
==State of constituencies==
Of the 999 constituencies, 251 were classified 'marginal', where the winning candidate obtained between 50% and 55% of the two-candidate preferred vote. A further 288 were classified as 'probably safe', placing the winning candidate between 55% and 60%. The remaining 460 seats were deemed 'safe' or 'very safe'. Post-election marginal seats are listed below.
| colspan="4" style="text-align:center; background:blue;"|<span style="color:white;">'''Marginal Opposition Constituencies'''</span>
|- style="background:#a6e7ff;"
| Whitney (NJ)
| Kimberly Guadagno
| DRP
| style="text-align:center;"| 50.02
|- style="background:#a6e7ff;"
| Hialeah (FL)
| Carlos Hernández
| DRP
| style="text-align:center;"| 50.03
|- style="background:#a6e7ff;"
| Modesto (CA)
| Heath Flora
| DRP
| style="text-align:center;"| 50.06
|- style="background:#a6e7ff;"
| Fessenden (ME)
| Catherine Conlow
| DRP
| style="text-align:center;"| 50.06
|- style="background:#a6e7ff;"
| Beech(KS)
| Terry Bruce
| DRP v. FFA
| style="text-align:center;"| 50.09
|}
{{hidden end}}
{{clear}}
{{clear}}
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2020 United States general election
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February 22, 2020
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Members of the 53rd Congress →
All 1998 seats to the United States Congress 1000 seats needed for a majority
Results by winning party by constituency for the U.S. Congress
Results by winning party by constituency for the U.S. Congress SDP SSD GRN FFA DRP FDP CCU NFP SOC
Chancellor before election
John Fetterman
[[SDP (SDP/SSD-GRN Coalition)|SDP (SDP/SSD-GRN Coalition)]]
Chancellor
John Fetterman
[[SDP (SDP/SSD-GRN-FFA Coalition)|SDP (SDP/SSD-GRN-FFA Coalition)]]
The 2020 United States general election was held on February 22, 2020 to elect members of the 53rd Congress of the United States. The election was called following the dissolution of the 52nd Congress elected at the 2015 general election. All 1998 seats of the Congress were up for election.
The second-term SDP-led government was able to enter a historic third-consecutive term by entering into a "Red-Green-Green" coalition with the Greens and Farmers Federation. Without the Farmers Federation, the SDP/SSD-Greens coalition would have been unable to form government as the collective coalition lost a net of 89 seats. Despite this, the SDP/SSD remained the largest parliamentary voting bloc, with a joint 783 seats between them. This was followed by the Democratic Republican Party which saw it's third consecutive election with losses, continuing a decade of losses.
The electoral system in the United States enforces compulsory voting, and uses full-preferential voting for single-member constituency seats with first-past-the-post voting to award at-Large balancing seats. The election was administered by the Federal Electoral Commission.
On election night the result was seen as an aberration as opinion polling had been unable to capture the strong increase in support for non-major parties. Polling had accurately predicted the SDP/SSD would remain the largest party, but had been unable to forecast the full scale of support gained and lost in various states. Opposition Leader Mitt Romney indicated his desire to fight to remain leader of the DRP, but within days a competitive race has emerged to decide the new leader of the DRP. Chancellor John Fetterman indicated he would attempt to form coalition with either the Free Democrats or Farmers, and was able to announce the formation of a coalition six weeks later.
Government (1030) Coalition Social Democratic Party (657) Southern Social Democrats (126) The Greens (145) Farmers Federation (102)
Opposition (618) Democratic Republican Party (618)
Crossbench (319) Free Democratic Party (154) Christian Conservative Union (137) National Freedom Party (33) Socialist Party (28)
Party
Votes
%
Swing (pp)
Seats
Change (seats)
C
A
T
Social Democratic Union
Social Democratic
73,779,189
31.48
−5.26
424
233
657
105
Southern Social Democrats
13,939,199
5.95
−0.16
81
45
126
3
Union Total
87,718,388
37.43
−5.42
505
278
783
108
Democratic Republican
69,031,326
29.45
−2.68
365
251
616
47
Free Democratic
17,899,640
7.64
+2.30
9
145
154
49
Christian Conservative Union
17,210,894
7.34
+1.55
51
86
137
31
The Greens
16,648,502
7.10
+0.61
20
125
145
19
Farmers Federation
13,143,201
5.61
+1.23
46
56
102
26
Socialist
6,764,540
2.89
−0.13
1
27
28
3
National Freedom
5,952,839
2.54
+2.54
2
31
33
33
Turnout
234,369,207
90.59
+0.04
–
–
–
–
Registered voters/turnout
258,715,972
–
–
–
–
–
–
Nationwide party vote
Social Democratic Union
37.43%
Democratic Republican
29.45%
Free Democratic
7.64%
Christian Conservative Union
7.34%
The Greens
7.10%
Farmers Federation
5.61%
Socialist
2.89%
National Freedom
2.54%
Constituency two-party-preferred vote
Social Democratic Union
52.11%
Democratic Republican
47.89%
Congressional Total Seats
Social Democratic Union
39.19%
Democratic Republican
30.83%
Free Democratic
7.71%
Christian Conservative Union
6.86%
The Greens
7.26%
Farmers Federation
5.11%
Socialist
1.40%
National Freedom
1.65%
Background
Previous Election
At the 2015 United States general election, first-term Chancellor Barack Obama was able to form government for a second term by entering a coalition with the Greens. It had been apparent on election night the Social Democrats had lost their near-majority status and would need to enter formal coalition talks. Also at the 2015 election, independent MC for Manhattan West Michael Bloomberg was unseated by Cynthia Nixon who won the seat for the Greens. This constituted the first Congress since 1923, to have no non-partisan independent MCs. For the first time ever in U.S. history, two consecutive Congresses featured no independent MCs although independent candidate for Manhattan West, Donald Trump, was the closest independent candidate for a constituency seat.
Barack Obama announced a coalition with the Greens in early November, three weeks after the election.
Union Instability
Since the formation of the Southern Social Democrats in the early 1970s as a separate brand of Social Democratic candidates, the demarcation line had been strictly enforced. The line explicitly curtailed the national Social Democratic Party from attempting to coerce the affiliation of state, county or sub-branches of the Southern Social Democrats to defect and instead elect delegates and participate in the SDP ecosystem. This line was first eroded at the 1998 Conference, where a majority of delegates from Florida voted to amend the provisions required, and return the state branch of the Southern Social Democrats into the national Social Democratic Party. In 2004, efforts to draw away Texas, narrowly failed. In 2012, shortly into the Obama Chancellery, the Georgia branch of the SSD defected and in 2014, Oklahoma followed suit - though the two did so for wildly different reasons. In Georgia, an influx of urban Social Democrats, with opinions closer to the national median than the Southern median took control of the branch while in Oklahoma, the continued decline of the party saw cosmopolitan delegations outweigh conservative factions and in turn both branches were returned into the SDP proper by the 2015 general election.
At the 2015 general election, the Union was re-elected to a second term in coalition with the Greens. Then-Chancellor Barack Obama retired in 2017 and was succeeded by Obama-ally Terry McAuliffe of Virginia. McAuliffe had overseen the affiliation of the SSD-Virginia to the SDP ahead of the 2016 Social Democratic Union Convention. The continued decline of the SSD was met with strong demands from SSD MCs, hence McAuliffe who had been the subject of disapproval by SSD leadership and caucus members, was dismissed six months into his tenure. He would be succeeded by Bill Nelson (MC for Florida). Nelson was widely seen as a stand-in among the public due to his age and hence, the anticipation was that there would be a full party ballot for Union Leader in the 2018 convention. This proved inaccurate, as with no consensus candidate as an alternative, no ballot was ordered for the leadership of the party.
In 2019, the Nelson Government was dealt a serious defeat in the 2019 Zanuck special election. SDP Incumbent Gaston Caperton had died of a heart attack and at the eventual by-election, the SDP experienced the largest single-seat swing for a political party since the adoption of full preferential voting. The result was seen as a wide rebuke of the collective SDP/SSD union brand and triggered calls for Nelson's resignation. At the ensuing leadership election, an upset was seen as backbencher John Fetterman, MC for Stern; was elected leader of the SDP/SSD.
Upon Fetterman's swearing-in, the Union vote experienced a fall in opinion polling to below 30%.
Members in italics did not re-contest their Congressional seats at this election.
Seat
Pre-election
Swing
Post-election
Party
Member
Margin
Margin
Member
Party
Menchaca, TX
Democratic Republican
Mac Thornberry
6.85
16.37
9.52
Paul Searl
National Freedom
Sequoyah, TN
Democratic Republican
Lamar Alexander
9.10
11.52
2.42
Ailene Combs
Christian Conservative
Rosenburg, TX
Democratic Republican
Pete Olson
1.41
3.28
1.84
Sri Kulkarni
Southern Social Democrats
Retiring members
In the United States, constituency seats have a historical tendency to favor incumbents against the national partisan swing. Hence, seats where incumbents announce their retirements, are noted as potentially more competitive. The below are constituency electorates with incumbent MCs who retired and did not recontest their election.
Social Democratic
Tom Udall (Bandelier, NM) - announced retirement March 25, 2019.
Jose Serrano (Feynman, NY) - announced retirement March 25, 2019.
Susan Davis (San Diego East, CA) - announced retirement September 4, 2019.
Nita Lowey (Westchester, NY) - announced retirement October 10, 2019.
Peter Visclosky (Gary, IN) - announced retirement November 6, 2019.
Southern Social Democrats
Democratic Republican
Lamar Alexander (Sequoyah, TN) - announced retirement December 17, 2018.
Mike Enzi (Knapp, WY) - announced retirement May 4, 2019.
Rob Woodall (Buford, GA) - announced retirement February 7, 2019.
Susan Brooks (Mulinnix, IN) - announced retirement June 14, 2019.
Paul Mitchell (Adela, MI) - announced retirement July 24, 2019.
Pete Olson (Rosenburg, TX) - announced retirement July 25, 2019.
Martha Roby (Baskin, AL) - announced retirement July 26, 2019.
Mike Conaway (Holelamp, TX) - announced retirement July 30, 2019.
Will Hurd (Ximenes, TX) - announced retirement August 1, 2019.
Kenny Marchant (Colleyville, TX) - announced retirement August 5, 2019.
John Shimkus (Effingham, IL) - announced retirement August 30, 2019.
Bill Flores (Waco, TX) - announced retirement September 4, 2019.
Jim Sensenbrenner (Welles, WI) - announced retirement September 4, 2019.
Francis Rooney (Naples, FL) - announced retirement October 19, 2019.
Peter King (Hempstead, NY) - announced retirement November 11, 2019.
Others
Farmers Federation
Pat Roberts (Layton, KS) - announced retirement January 4, 2019.
Dave Loebsack (Carothers, IA) - announced retirement April 12, 2019.
Greg Walden (Peyton, OR) - announced retirement October 28, 2019.
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49