The Upcoming US presidential Election; What You Should Know.

The US Presidential election will be held on Tuesday 3rd November 2020. The two main contestants are President Donald Trump of the Repulican party and Joe Biden of the Democratic Party.

How the US presidential election system works.

The US uses the electoral college system, so winning the most votes does not guarantee winning the election. Voters will vote to select Presidential electors who will in turn vote on December 14,2020 to elect a new President or retain the incumbent.

Each state is assigned a number of Presidential electors based on the population in each state. Whichever party that wins the presidential election in a particular state wins all the number of presidential electors assigned to that state. The presidential electors themselve are to remain faithful and vote for the presidential and vice presidential  candidate that won the election in their respective states. There are 538 presidential electors in total and for a presidential candidate to win, 270 or more must vote in favour.

Since the US presidential election is not simply based on the number of votes cast, presidential candidates usually concentrate their campaign on states that have high number of  presidential electors. Below are some states with high number of electors;

California: 55

Texas:38

New York: 29

Florida : 29

Illinois: 20

Pennsylvania: 20

electoral map of the 2020 November election

Who is going to win the US presidential election, Trump or Biden?

National opinion polls currently predict that Biden will win the election as he is leading by 7% over his incumbent rival, Trump. However it is still a close call as no one can clearly say who will win. In 2016 Hillary Clinton led in the polls and had about 3 million more votes than Trump but she still lost because she won fewer presidential electors.

The winner of the US 2020 presidential election will be inaugurated on Wednesday, 20th January, 2021 according to latest reports.

If Biden wins the election,he will be the first candidate to defeat an incumbent president in 28 years since Republican George H. W Bush’s defeat to Bill Clinton in 1992.

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