2020 United States Presidential Election (LOTF RP)

2020 United States presidential election

November 3, 2020
538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Nominee TBD TBD Party Democratic Republican Home state TBD TBD
Incumbent President Rick Tawney Republican

The 2020 United States presidential election is the 59th quadrennial presidential election, to be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Incumbent President, Rick Tawney is not seeking election to a full-term after taking office in December of 2019 in the wake of the resignation of President Arnold Wolf. Subsequently, the Republican and Democratic Primaries in both parties have been incredibly competitive. This marks the third election since the 1952 Presidential Election, where an incumbent President or incumbent Vice-President did not seek the Presidency, after 2008 and 2016.

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 have been 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. 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, which is then ratified by the delegates at the party's convention (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. 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. The election will occur simultaneously alongside elections for the House of Representatives, Senate, and various state and local-level elections.

The Maine Legislature passed a bill in August 2019 adopting ranked-choice voting (RCV) both for presidential primaries and for the general election. The Governor of Maine allowed the bill to become law without her signature, which delayed it from taking effect until after the 2020 Democratic primary in March, but made Maine the first state to use RCV for a presidential general election. The Maine Republican Party filed signatures for a veto referendum and preclude the use of RCV for the 2020 election, but the Maine Secretary of State found there were insufficient valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. A challenge in Maine Superior Court was successful for the Maine Republican Party, but the Maine Supreme Judicial Court stayed the ruling pending appeal on September 8, 2020. Nevertheless, ballots began being printed later that day without the veto referendum and including RCV for the presidential election, and the Court ruled in favor of the Secretary of State on September 22, allowing RCV to be used. An emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied on October 6. Implementation of RCV could potentially delay the projection of the winner(s) of Maine's electoral votes for days after election day and may complicate interpretation of the national popular vote. The law continues the use of the congressional district method for the allocation of Maine's electors (Nebraska is the only other state that apportions its electoral votes this way).

On December 14, 2020, pledged electors for each candidate, known collectively as the United States Electoral College, will gather in their state's capital to cast their official ballot. The ballots are sent to Congress to be opened and officially counted pursuant to the processes laid out by the Electoral Count Act of 1887. The newly elected Congress will meet in joint session to open, count, and certify the ballots on January 6, 2021, with the sitting vice president (in his role as president of the Senate) presiding over the session.

Simultaneous elections

Further Information: 2020 United States Senate Elections and 2020 United States House of Representatives Elections

Nominations

Democratic Party nomination

Primaries

2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries

February 3 to June 3, 2020
3,979 delegates to the Democratic National Convention 1,991 delegates needed to win 2,376 of 4,750 delegates needed to win any subsequent ballots at a contested convention
Candidate Levi Murphy Jillian Dayton Home state Minnesota Virginia Estimated delegate count 16 14 Contests won 1 0 Popular vote 70,475 60,110 Percentage 39.96% 34.09%   Candidate Mike Velez John Donaldson Home state Florida New York Estimated delegate count 6 5 Contests won 0 0 Popular vote 24,770 21,002 Percentage 14.05% 12.44%
Previous Past Democratic Nominee Diane Clifford

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 required 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. Meanwhile, six states used ranked-choice voting in the primaries: Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and Wyoming for all voters; and Iowa and Nevada for absentee voters.

After Diane Clifford's loss in the previous election, the Democratic Party was seen largely as leaderless, and was also seen as fractured between the centrist Clifford wing and the more progressive Baginski wing of the party, echoing the rift brought up in the 2016 primary election. In 2018, several U.S. House districts that Democrats hoped to gain from the Republican majority had contentious primary elections. Politico described these clashes as a "Democratic civil war". During this period, there was a general shift to the left in regards to college tuition, healthcare, and immigration among Democrats in the Senate.

The field began with 14 candidates before whittling down to 4 by Iowa.

Date (daily totals)	Total pledged delegates	Contest and total popular vote	Delegates won and popular vote
			Levi Murphy	Jillian Dayton	Mike Velez	John Donaldson	Other
February 3	41	Iowa 176,364	16 70,475 (39.96%)	14 60,110 (34.09%)	6 24,770 (14.05%)	5 21,002 (12.44%)	7
February 11	24	New Hampshire
February 22	36	Nevada
February 29	54	South Carolina
March 3 (Super Tuesday) (1,344)	52	Alabama
	6	American Samoa
	31	Arkansas
	415	California
	67	Colorado
	24	Maine
	91	Massachusetts
	75	Minnesota
	110	North Carolina
	37	Oklahoma
	64	Tennessee
	228	Texas
	29	Utah
	16	Vermont
	99	Virginia
March 3–10	13	Democrats Abroad
March 10 (352)	20	Idaho
	125	Michigan
	36	Mississippi
	68	Missouri
	14	North Dakota
	89	Washington
March 14	6	Northern Mariana Islands
March 17 (577)	67	Arizona
	219	Florida
	155	Illinois
	136	Ohio
March 24	105	Georgia
March 29	51	Puerto Rico
April 4 (107)	15	Alaska
	24	Hawaii
	54	Louisiana
	14	Wyoming
April 7	84	Wisconsin
April 28 (663)	60	Connecticut
	21	Delaware
	96	Maryland
	274	New York
	186	Pennsylvania
	26	Rhode Island
May 2 (46)	7	Guam
	39	Kansas
May 5	82	Indiana
May 12 (57)	29	Nebraska
	28	West Virginia
May 19 (115)	54	Kentucky
	61	Oregon
June 2	126	New Jersey
June 6	7	U.S. Virgin Islands

Republican Party nomination

Primaries

The Republican Primary was until January 2019 expected to be a pro-forma re-nomination of President Arnold Wolf. However, with his announcement that he would not seek a second term following diagnosis with brain cancer, the primary field was blown wide open. The primary began with 11 major candidates and was whittled to two by Iowa.