Presidential Elections

Presidential elections are held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, a date Congress set in 1845. The process begins more than a year earlier, when candidates declare and compete for their party's nomination in a series of state primaries and caucuses, run by states and parties under rules that vary widely. The results allocate delegates to each party's national convention, held in the summer of the election year, where the nominee is formally chosen and announces a running mate.

The general election campaign runs from the conventions to November, with televised debates organized in recent cycles by the campaigns themselves after the Commission on Presidential Debates was set aside in 2024. Campaigns raise and spend billions of dollars, regulated by the Federal Election Commission, though super PACs that make only independent expenditures may raise unlimited sums under Citizens United v. FEC in 2010. Elections are administered by states and counties, which set rules for registration, early and mail voting, and identification.

Voters in each state choose electors, who meet in December, and Congress counts their votes on January 6. The winner is inaugurated at noon on January 20. Turnout in 2024 was about 64 percent of eligible voters, second only to 2020 among elections in more than a century. The next presidential election will be held on November 7, 2028.