2020 United States presidential election
The 2020 United States presidential election, scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, 2020, will be the 59th quadrennial U.S. presidential election. Voters will select presidential electors who in turn will either elect a new president and vice president through the electoral college or reelect the incumbents. The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses are likely 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 presidential nominee.
President Donald Trump of the Republican Party, who was elected in 2016, is seeking reelection to a second term. The winner of the 2020 presidential election is scheduled to be inaugurated on January 20, 2021.
Article Two of the United States Constitution states that for a person to serve as President of the United States 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 nominee then personally chooses a vice presidential running mate to form that party's presidential ticket (with the exception of the Libertarian Party, which nominates its vice presidential candidate by delegate vote regardless of the nominee's preference). The general election in November is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors then directly elect the President and Vice President.
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
The Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution states that an individual can not 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 a single term as president, is not constitutionally prohibited from being elected to another term in the 2020 election.
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