Why is the presidential election important?
Who will win the “most important election in the history of the United States” (Donald Trump), the “most existential and important election of our lifetime” (Kamala Harris)?
There is no shortage of superlatives in the USA this year either. No wonder, because it has rarely been as tight as this time. In the polls for the presidential election, the Democrat and Vice President Kamala Harris is slightly leading, but not by far enough to predict the outcome.
Read more about the surveys and their pitfalls here
And this year there is a lot at stake: no office (in the West) is as powerful, no decision can have such far-reaching consequences as that of the person in the White House. Donald Trump is running for the third time, and the Republican has already made it clear what he plans to do if he wins the election: He will be a “dictator for a day,” Trump said recently. Not only in the USA, many fear that it won’t stay that way.
Who are the two candidates?
Only for the second time in US history is he running for office Kamala Harris a woman for the highest office in the land. The Democrat comes from California and is the incumbent US Vice President. She will be 60 years old two weeks before the election. Harris was attorney general in her home state before she was elected senator in 2017.
As number two in the USA, it remained pale for a long time, especially in its assigned main project of illegal immigration. Her quick nomination to succeed Joe Biden as presidential candidate was therefore somewhat surprising. If she wins, Harris would not only be the first female US president, but also the first head of state with black and Asian ancestry.
Donald Trump is running in the US presidential election for the third time. He was elected in 2016 – even though he received fewer votes than his opponent at the time. The Republican, 78 years old, inherited a huge real estate fortune from his father and went into the construction business himself. Numerous skyscrapers bear his name. Only moderately successful as a businessman, he became a super celebrity in the early 2000s with his own TV show.
As a politician, the New Yorker has developed from a liberal to a right-wing populist. Trump is notorious for his penchant for insults and lies.
Read more about Donald Trump’s right-wing environment here
This is how Americans vote
It actually sounds simple: The President of the United States is elected by popular vote. Whoever gets the most votes wins. But unfortunately it’s not that simple. If you want to get into the White House, you have to get the most people behind you, but above all you have to win over the most people in the right states.
Read more about the pitfalls of the US electoral system here.
The number of electors to be sent depends on the size of the population. The great California sends 55 electoral women and men to the capital, Alaska, with around 700,000 inhabitants, the minimum number of three.
After the vote, all voters form the “Electoral College” with currently 538 members. They in turn elect the president according to the voters’ mandate. 270 votes are needed for this. This official part happens around seven weeks after the vote.
The electors and the swing states
Whoever wins at least 270 voters across the states becomes US President. Theoretically, a dozen states would be enough – the most populous of the 50. In practice, however, more is needed because experience shows that the two largest states fall to one of the two parties: California has voted Democratic since 1988, so there is nothing to be gained for the Republicans. In Texas, on the other hand, the majority votes conservative, where the Democrats get nothing. The majorities in 40 other states are similarly distributed, which is why the election is actually only decided in the few so-called swing states that sometimes vote one way and the other.
This year, those include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina. 77 electoral votes are up for grabs there, which is why the main election campaign will take place here. It cannot be ruled out that lawsuits will be filed against the election results in one of these states.
When the winner becomes the loser
Because of this system, it can happen that the candidate loses the election even though he or she received the most direct votes (popular vote). That was the case in 2016. At that time, more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump – but in the end the Republican got the required 270 voters because he won the “right” states.
When will the election results be known?
On election night, November 5th, the major news channels usually announce the winner based on their projections. This usually happens around midnight US Eastern Time, after the last polling stations in remote Hawaii have closed. In Germany it is between 5 and 6 a.m. in the morning.
If the trend of recent years continues this time, the announcement could be significantly delayed. More and more people are choosing to vote by post, which lengthens the counting process and makes post-election surveys more difficult. If the counts in important swing states are close, the result is “too close to call” – in other words: too close to announce.
Who will win the 2024 US election? Whether it will be Harris or Trump, read our news blog about the US election results.
How reliable are the projections?
The result will be officially confirmed by the US Congress on January 6th. This year, however, there is a relatively high chance that the presidential election will only be decided in court. As in 2020, things are likely to be very tight again in Wisconsin and Nevada. The race in North Carolina will also be closer than originally thought. The respective losers there will probably do everything in their power to win the state after all – or, in the worst case, to have the election annulled.
What else will be voted on on November 5th?
As usual, the vote in the US Congress also takes place at the same time as the presidential election. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and around a third of the 100 seats in the Senate are up for election. If the party of the winning presidential candidate wins a majority there, it will be easier for the boss in the White House to govern. In addition, the governor will be elected in eleven states.
Where can you watch election evening?
If you want the really big show, watch the big US news channels: Fox News, CNN, CBS and so on. They are also broadcasting the election evening non-stop on the Internet.
Most German channels start broadcasting from midnight in our time. RTL, to which the star heard, starts at midnight with an extended night journal. The US election special broadcast starts at 1 a.m. together with ntv. We will of course keep you up to date online throughout election night.
