How Do the American Presidential Elections Work?
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The Decision to Run
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An old joke in American politics is that the day after a presidential election is the first day of the next campaign. While this may be an exaggeration, preparations for a presidential run begin as long as 2 years before the actual election. For any presidential candidate, a campaign begins with the decision to run. Any prospective candidate will weigh his or her ambition for the nation's highest office against the costs--financial, personal, and otherwise--of running. A presidential campaign opens virtually all aspects of a candidate's life to intense scrutiny by the public, the media and rival candidates.
The Road to the Nomination
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To win the presidency, candidates must first win the nomination of their respective political parties. Then each party's candidates face off in the general election campaign. The presidential nomination process is controlled by the country's two major political parties and consists of presidential nomination contests, known as primaries or caucuses, held in each of the 50 states. Each state holds a Democratic and a Republican primary or caucus. The primaries and caucuses begin in the early months of a presidential election year. Iowa holds the nation's first caucus, while New Hampshire holds the first primary. Winning your party's primary means winning all or a proportional share of the delegates allocated to each state by the national party. Winning an early primary such as New Hampshire gives a campaign momentum, attracting supporters and campaign contributions. Fund raising is an essential element of a presidential campaign because campaign staff, travel and advertising cost money--lots of it. A convincing win in the early primary states can help carry a candidate through the rest of the primary elections. Candidates from each party strive to win a majority of their party's delegates so that they can claim their party's nomination at the national convention. Each party holds its national convention in the late summer before the November general election.
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The General Election Campaign
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At each national convention, delegates vote to nominate their party's candidate, who also selects a vice presidential running mate. The party conventions are carefully scripted media events in which the parties hope to showcase their presidential nominees and give them momentum in the general election campaign. During the general election campaign, candidates may travel across the country, actively campaigning in every state. More recently, however, presidential candidates have focused on a handful of "battleground" states in which neither candidate appears to have majority support. In the 2004 and 2008 elections, key battleground states included Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The Electoral College
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When you cast a vote for president, you're actually voting for a slate of electors committed to vote for the candidate you select. Each state has a number of electors equal to its number of congressional representation (House of Representatives and Senate). In 2008, a total of 538 electoral votes (known collectively as the Electoral College) were at stake. The candidate who wins the popular vote in a given state wins that state's electoral votes in a "winner-take-all" system. To win the general election, a candidate must win a majority (at least 270 electoral votes) in the Electoral College. California, with 55 electoral votes, is the nation's biggest electoral prize.
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