US Election 2024 Explained PDF

Who are the two candidates at this moment? Check the latest polls on Harris and Trump  How are the candidates nominated? The two main parties nominate a presidential candidate by holding a series of votes called states primaries and caucuses, where people cho...

Who are the two candidates at this moment? Check the latest polls on Harris and Trump  How are the candidates nominated? The two main parties nominate a presidential candidate by holding a series of votes called states primaries and caucuses, where people choose who they want to lead the party in a general election. In the Republican Party, former president Donald Trump won his party’s support with a massive lead over his rivals. He became the official Republican nominee at a party convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For the Democrats, Vice-President Kamala Harris joined the race after President Joe Biden dropped out and she was unopposed by any other Democrates. There are also some independent candidates running for president. The democrats are the liberal political party, with an agenda defined largely by its push for civil rights, a broad social safety net and measures to address climate change. The Republicans are the conservative political party in the US. Also known as the GOP, or the grand Old Party, it has stood for lower taxes, shrinking the size of the government, gun rights and tighter restrictions on immigration and abortion. The winner is not the person who gets the most votes across the country. Instead, both candidates compete to win contests held across the 50 states. Each state has a certain number of so-calles electoral college votes partly based on population. There are a total of 538 up for grabs, and the winner is the candidate that wins 270 or more. All but two states have a winner-takes-all rule, so whichever candidate wins the highest number of votes is awarded all of the state’s electoral college votes. Most states lean heavily towards one party or the other, so the focus is usually on a dozen or so states where either of them could win. These are known as the battleground or swing states. It is possible for a candidate to win the most votes nationally – like Hillary Clinton did in 2016 - but still be defeated by the electoral college. Members of Congress – where laws are passed Congress consists of the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are up for election, and the Senate, where 34 seats are bein contested. Usually a winner is declared on the night of the election, but in 2020 it took a few days to count all the votes. The period after the election is known as the transition if there is a change of president. The president is officially sworn into office in January in a ceremony known as the inauguration, held on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington DC.