United States presidential election

Beyond the parameters set in the U.S. Constitution, state law, not federal, regulates most aspects of administering the popular vote, including most of the voter eligibility and registration requirements.

[3] In modern times, faithless and unpledged electors have not affected the ultimate outcome of an election, so the results can generally be determined based on the state-by-state popular vote.

Although taking fewer votes, the winner claimed more electoral college seats, due to winning close and narrow pluralities in numerous swing states.

Each party may then choose a vice presidential running mate to join the ticket, which is either determined by choice of the nominee or by a second round of voting.

This was the result of a compromise between those constitutional framers who wanted Congress to choose the president and those who preferred a national popular vote.

Numerous constitutional amendments have been submitted seeking to replace the Electoral College with a direct popular vote, but none has ever successfully passed both Houses of Congress.

Thus, this began a trend of presidential candidates declaring their intentions to run as early as the spring of the preceding calendar year so they can start raising and spending the money needed for their nationwide campaign.

After this, a Democratic National Committee-commissioned panel led by Senator George McGovern – the McGovern–Fraser Commission – recommended that states adopt new rules to assure wider participation.

[30] This has led presidential candidates, especially members from the two major political parties, to officially announce their intentions to run as early as the spring of the previous calendar year so they can start raising or spending the money needed for their nationwide campaign.

The 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments to the Constitution state that suffrage cannot be denied on grounds of race or color, sex, or age for citizens eighteen years or older, respectively.

The major political parties officially vote for their presidential candidate at their respective nominating conventions, usually all held in the summer before the federal election.

The most expensive form of advertising is running ads on broadcast television and is the best way to reach the largest number of potential voters.

Usually, the size of the candidate's political party and the results of the major nomination conventions determine who is pre-listed on the presidential ballot.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the case Chiafalo v. Washington on July 6, 2020, that the constitution does not prevent states from penalizing or replacing faithless electors.

Unless there are faithless electors, disputes, or other controversies, the events in December and January mentioned above are largely a formality since the winner can be determined based on the state-by-state popular vote results.

Between the general election and Inauguration Day, this apparent winner is referred to as the "president-elect" (unless it is a sitting president who has won re-election).

Six of them – John Adams (1796), Thomas Jefferson (1800), Martin Van Buren (1836), Richard Nixon (1968), George H. W. Bush (1988), and Joe Biden (2020) – began their first term after winning an election.

The invention of radio and then television gave way to reliance upon national political advertisements such as Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 "Daisy", Ronald Reagan's 1984 "Morning in America", and George H. W. Bush's 1988 "Revolving Door", all of which became major factors.

[48] Use of the Internet for grassroots fundraising by US presidential candidates such as Howard Dean, Barack Obama, Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders established it as an effective political tool.

On March 26, 2006, the Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to "not regulate political communication on the Internet, including emails, blogs and the creating of Web sites".

[53] A comment was made about this decision by Roger Alan Stone of Advocacy Inc. which explains this loophole in the context of a political campaign: "A wealthy individual could purchase all of the e-mail addresses for registered voters in a congressional district ... produce an Internet video ad, and e-mail it along with a link to the campaign contribution page ... Not only would this activity not count against any contribution limits or independent expenditure requirements; it would never even need to be reported.

[54] Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again", made Americans feel like the country was in a time of loss, willing to take a risk on voting for a candidate without political experience.

The presidential election process is controversial, with critics arguing that it is inherently undemocratic, and discourages voter participation and turnout in many areas of the country.

Campaign activity, media attention, and voter participation are usually higher in these states, as the candidates attempt to build momentum and generate a bandwagon effect in these early primaries.

Conversely, voters in California and other large states which traditionally hold their primaries last in June usually end up having no say in who the presidential candidates will be.

As the drama has left the conventions, and complaints grown that they were scripted and dull pep rallies, public interest and viewership has fallen off.

Such swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) are inundated with campaign visits, saturation television advertising, get-out-the-vote efforts by party organizers, and debates.

Voter turnout from the 2004 and 2008 election was "not statistically different", based on the voting age population used by a November 2008 U.S. census survey of 50,000 households.

[75] In 2016, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump broke with tradition, becoming the only major-party candidate since Gerald Ford in 1976 to not make any of his full tax returns public.

[81] Since the end of World War II, there have been a total of five American presidential elections that had significant coattail effects: Harry Truman in 1948, Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Ronald Reagan in 1980, and Barack Obama in 2008.