In due course, a new president will emerge from the US General Election 2016. For many readers and IR -international relations- scholars interested in the American elections, there is a vague idea of how a president is elected since the voting system is quite complicated and the truth is that many factors affect the final result.
The current article aims to cover this gap. The two following sections will more closely consider the US political and electoral system. A thorough and comparative analysis over the two finalists, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, follows in the article 2016 US President Candidates
A brief introduction to the US political system
The US politics follow the British model of the ‘two-party system’; two parties, that of Democrats and Republicans, are the most powerful parties in the US governance and decision-making. Over the years, the two parties have been associated with two symbols in the press; a donkey for Democrats and an elephant for Republicans, an idea based in the 1860s when an American cartoonist illustrated the two parties in one of his cartoons (US History).
According to western political thought, the two-party system is perceived as a stability factor that exerts balance between the two parties. Of course, each party represents a different school of thought; Republicans are well known for their conservative views and could be identified as patriotic, anti-Communists or the religious right. On the other hand, Democrats are more liberal with their ideology being shaped by movements of workers, socialists, feminists, environmentalists, civil rights and anti-war activists (Schwartz, 2010). Despite their differences, the two parties sometimes form coalitions to win the elections and block third parties from the national power.
Other parties, such as the Green Party, the Libertarian, Socialist, Natural Law and Constitution hold their position in the American political scene. Fears have been raised that the presence of third parties in US politics could weaken the election process. Nevertheless, the two main parties have absorbed most of their ideas by limiting their power as political movements and not as political parties.
Another issue that needs attention is the role of lobbying in the US government. The pressure that powerful interests bring to bear on the political system is undeniable and more obvious in the campaign spending during the presidential election. Thus, the political system is flooded by corporate money by exerting pressure to government institutions, which intercepts the independent thinking of the government and the voters. A great example is Donald Trump; one of the wealthiest businessmen in the US is a candidate on the presidential run; a process that requires high money spending during the presidential campaign.
In conclusion, candidates for the Presidential Election come from the Republican or the Democratic Party. A prospective candidacy from a third party would be puzzling but not impossible. As Best and Lem highlight, such a scenario is probable in case of low/high electoral competition or as a way to draw the public attention to crucial policy issues (Best and Lem, 2010).
How the United States is governed
In the public eye, the president has been a symbol of power. Americans vote for their president and vice-president, but how extended or reserved is their power?
First of all, the federal government is composed of three powers; the legislative that makes laws through the congress (senate and the house of representatives); the executive that carries out laws including the president, the vice president and its cabinet; the juridical power -Supreme Court and the Other Federal Courts- evaluate the laws.
More specifically, the President has a dual role; s/he is the leader of the state and the federal government, but also the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. A president serves for a four-year term with a possibility to be re-elected for one more time. One of the biggest presidential powers is that can veto laws passed by Congress and nominate the members of the cabinet. However, the congress balances the presidential powers by confirming or rejecting the president appointments; or in extreme cases, the congress can dismiss the president.
The Election Process: Primaries, National Conventions and General Election
Voting systems vary across the world. Genuinely, each country develops its own electoral system based on its distinctive political history and culture, which in turn has a direct impact on government stability (ACE project, 2012). In the US, the election process is quite complicated as it includes many stages before the General Election. The presidential election in the United States occurs every four years. However, the campaigning process begins over a year in advance when candidates of each party announce their candidacy.
The first stage of the election starts with the primaries and caucuses, during which a list of nominees is presented from each party. In Primaries, secret voting occurs in a local/state level whereas in caucuses the political parties hold private meetings for the election of their candidate. At the end of the first round, a single presidential candidate will emerge on the Republican and Democratic side. Each nominee will run in the General Election based on the number of delegates¹ that will collect at their party conventions in July – 1,237 delegates in the Republican race and 2,383 in the Democrat race.
Once primaries and caucuses completed, the two parties will launch their national conventions in July, where they will officially unveil their nominees. In case that no candidate has reached the majority of the votes, then party members will select their candidate during the convention. The G.O.P² Convention will take place in Cleveland Ohio between 18th to 21st of July, while the Democrats will meet in Philadelphia between 25th and 28th of July. Eventually, finalists will announce a Vice Presidential running mate and will soon start their campaigning all over the country.
General Elections will begin in early November when Americans will head to the polls in each of the 50 states to cast their vote for a slate of electors. In fact, citizens do not vote directly for the candidate president but for the Electoral College, a body of intermediaries that vote in their states for the President and the Vice President. More precisely, electors are qualified citizens selected by the parties, some of which have pledged their support to one of the candidates.
In total, the Electoral College consists of 538 electors for the 50 American states. Each state has a certain number of electoral votes based on its population; that equals to the number of its US Representatives plus the two US Senators. The only two exceptions are Main and Nebraska with 5 electors each, as they use the congressional district method. Following this method, each district votes for one elector and then the winner of the statewide vote is awarded the two remaining Senate votes. Also, Washington DC has 3 electoral votes, equal to the number held by the smallest state.
Next, the electoral votes will be counted and presented in Congress. The winner of the Presidential Elections will be the candidate that gathers more than half (270) of the electoral votes. If no candidate receives the majority, then the House of Representatives will elect the President and the Senate the Vice President respectively. Based on this principle, there is a risk that a President and Vice-President emerge from different political parties, which could cause a conflict that would ultimately affect their leadership.
After the General Election, the new President will start assembling his cabinet and will take the Oath of Office in the Inauguration Day, which is set for this election on January 20, 2017 (US Electoral College, 2016).
US Election 2016: What happens next?
With primaries and caucuses almost completed, it is evident that Donald Trump from the Republicans and Hillary Clinton from the Democrats will be the two candidates for the General Election. Current results show that Donald Trump is very close to winning the Republican Party nomination by nearly reaching the 1,237 votes to win the nomination with Ted Cruz following and Marco Rubio coming third. For Democrats, Hillary Clinton gathers the majority of the votes with 2,305 out of the 2,383 to win the nomination, while Bernie Sanders has gathered 1,533 (based on the results of May 25th, 2016; The New York Times, 2016). Next step will be the confirmation of each party nominee in July’s National Conventions.
During the General Election, the result will be deeply affected by a group of states with the largest number of electors: California comes first with 55 electors; Texas second with 38 votes; New York and Florida follow with 29 votes each; then Illinois with Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes each (US Electoral College, 2010). Some of these states are considered as Republican or Democrat. Thus, California, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New York are likely to sit in Democrats’ side, while Texas and Midwestern/Western states are likely to vote for a Republican candidate. Other states belong in “the swing states” group; they are regarded as indecisive States. Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada belong in this group. For now, it is left to see how the two candidates will be able to convince each of these states and win the General Election.
Photo: George Larcher, Election Day 2012-11-06, 311/366. Source: (flickr.com) | (CC BY 2.0)
Footnotes
[1] Delegates:
Party members that vote for the candidate president during the party conventions.
[2] G.O.P.:
The Grand Old Party (G.O.P.) refers to the Republican Party, a term that is used since 1874 (Grace, 2002).
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