During the presidential election, voters selected a President and Vice President who will govern the United States for the next four years. Voters also elected members of Congress, the two chambers that pass laws. For this election, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 seats in the Senate were contested.
The political process begins with a series of primary and caucuses where potential candidates from each party compete to win delegates who will represent them at the national conventions. Once enough delegates are won, the candidate with the most votes becomes the official nominee for his or her party.
Following the nominations, candidates go head to head campaigning across the country, rallying supporters and participating in televised debates to explain their plans and positions on key issues. They face questions from their opponents and from citizens on the sidelines who want to know what they stand for.
The winner of the electoral college vote becomes the President and Vice President. Each state has 538 electoral votes which are distributed based on its population. Generally, the larger a state’s population the more electoral votes it has. On Election Day, November 6, voters go to the polls and cast their ballot for the candidate they prefer.
With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, where all states elect their electoral votes based on popular vote, most states allocate their electoral votes in a way that ensures that either the Democratic or Republican party will get most or all of the state’s seats. This forces candidates to spend exponentially more time and money campaigning in a few so-called swing states.
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