The presidential election is where citizens vote for a candidate for President of the United States. The winner will have enormous influence over our country’s domestic and international policies. This includes decisions about public transportation, healthcare, education, immigration and crime. The winning presidential candidate also has the power to nominate judges to the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, and to choose members of his or her Cabinet.
The process for selecting a presidential candidate begins with state and local primaries and caucuses. At these events voters use a secret ballot to cast their votes for hopeful presidential candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties. The winners then become delegates to their party’s national nominating convention. At the conventions delegates from every state and Washington, D.C., vote to select the presidential candidates that will be on the November general election ballot.
After the delegates are selected, a nationwide campaign kicks off. The candidates and their supporters travel across the country, meeting voters and trying to convince them that they are the right person for the job. Often these campaigns include extensive television and radio advertising. In the past, political ads were often overwrought and aimed at generating emotional reactions, but advances in technology have shifted the tone of the presidential campaigns to be more fact-based and analytical.
Most states (except Maine and Nebraska) use a winner-takes-all electoral system, meaning that the candidate who receives the majority of votes in a state wins all of the state’s electors. This leads to candidates spending exponentially more time and money on a small number of swing states. In 2000, for example, George W. Bush won the election in Florida by a margin so narrow that it led to a recount and the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore.