United States: presidential election

Americans elect their president by indirect popular vote every 4 years. The vote is held at the same time as elections for the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate, the Tuesday following the first Monday in November, which will be November 5, 2024, for the next election.

Americans will choose 538 electoral college electors, distributed among the 50 states, who then elect the future president.

To win the election, a candidate must gain an absolute majority or 270 of the electoral college electors.

Each state has as many electors of the electoral college as representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate. California, the most populous state, has 54. The smaller states like Wyoming, and the capital Washington, have only 3, the minimum.

The winning candidate in each state takes all the electoral college votes in that state, except Maine and Nebraska, which distribute them proportionally.

With this system, the states which are not clearly dominated by the Democrats or the Republicans are crucial to the result: they are called « swing states », the states which can change from one party to the other and have an impact on the election result. The list of Swing States changes with each election.