2020 US Presidential Elections (TheMaster197)

The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial American presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020. The Democratic ticket of U.S. Senator Bernie Senators and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren defeated the incumbent Republican ticket of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, marking the first time since 1992 and the only time between 1992 and 2040 that a non-incumbent ticket won the presidential election. Sanders took office as the 46th president, and Warren as the 49th vice president on January 20, 2021.

Sanders emerged as his party's nominee amidst a wide field of Democratic primary candidates, after a highly contested primary battle between him and former vice president Joe Biden. Biden's populist, social democratic campaign, which promised better banking reforms, more progressive taxation, "inclusive capitalism", job training programs, better social welfare benefits. Trump's nationalist, protectionist, populist campaign which promised to "Keep America Great" seemed rather oxymoronic given the circumstances of Trump's presidency and the country as a whole leading up to the election. Trump faced a barrage of controversies leading up to the election, such as his breach of the presidential code of conduct, contempt of congress, contempt of the supreme court, and his impeachment trails which failed to lead to his removal from office because of a very bi-partisan vote in the Senate where all but 2 Republicans voted nay on removal from office. Early in the campaign the Democrats focused on Trump's lack of ethics and respect for the office, policies towards a more economically secure future in the case of automation and restoring the US image abroad. Trump and the Republicans focused on the unemployment rate which at that time was still hovering around 3.5% to 4% and the tax cuts of early-2018. Trump was already facing low approval ratings around 42% before the impeachment proceedings brought his approval ratings down to 39% before the Senate trail in the end of January. The final issue that completely undermined any chance of re-election he had was when on March 6th, 2020 the first in a series of negative job reports were released indicating a recession which had begun at the end of January, 2020 that raised the unemployment rate from 3.5% in November, 2019 to 5.0% in May, 2020. The census that year had kept job losses down to a minimum but once the census firings began it triggered a psychological shock in the economy that caused a short spike in job losses and the US unemployment rate from 5% in May to 7.4% in October.

Sanders led every pre-election nationwide poll, all the swing state polls, however, unlike 2016 the polls weren't that far off except for three surprise upsets in Montana, Missouri and Indiana, Mike Pence's home state. The electoral vote count for Sanders was the greatest of any presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984, the fifth greatest for any non-incumbent candidate behind Hoover in 1928, FDR in 1932, Eisenhower in 1952 and Reagan in 1980. This election had the largest popular vote gap in US history at 25,630,482 votes finally beating the record long held by Richard Nixon in 1972 at 17,995,488 by almost 8-million votes. The margin of victory in the popular vote of 17.5% was the largest of any non-incumbent president since FDR in 1932 and the third largest in the modern era (1824-Present) behind Harding in 1920 and FDR in 1932. Sanders won 14 states that Trump won in 2016: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Sanders was the first Democrat to win either Arizona or Missouri since Bill Clinton in 1996, the first to win either Montana or Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992, the first to win Texas since Jimmy Carter in 1976 and the first to win North Dakota since LBJ in 1964. He also won the largest share of the popular vote by a Democrat since LBJ in 1964. Many of these factors led many commentators to compare Trump's loss to that of Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Herbert Hoover in 1932, making it one of the greatest defeats of an incumbent president in the modern era. This election was the only instance between 1992 and 2040 where an incumbent president was defeated in their re-election bid.

The 2020 Election cycle also saw Democrats gain 11 seats giving them a 59-seat majority their largest since 2010, an additional 44 seats in the House of Representatives, giving them a 279 seat majority their largest since 1978. The election was also a Democrat landslide on the state level to with the Democrats gaining a majority in 11 state senates, 9 state houses bringing their state level control from 19 state senates and 20 state houses to 30 state senates and 29 state houses. Many political scientists and historians also site this election as one of the reasons for the Republican party's more moderate shift and re-branding of themselves into the Liberty Moderate Party during the 2030's.

Background
Article Two of the United States Constitution provides that the President and Vice President of the United States must be natural-born citizens of the United States, at least 35 years old, and residents of the United States for a period of at least 14 years. Candidates for the presidency typically seek the nomination of one of the political parties, in which case each party devises a method (such as a primary election) to choose the candidate the party deems best suited to run for the position. Traditionally, the primary elections are indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The party's delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party's behalf. The general election in November is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors in turn directly elect the president and vice president.

President Donald Trump, a Republican and businessman from New York, was eligible to seek reelection to a second term as his first term expired at noon eastern standard time on January 20, 2021.

House Impeachment and Senate Acquittal of 2019-20
An impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump was initiated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on September 24, 2019, after a whistleblower alleged that Trump may have abused the power of the presidency by withholding military aid as a means of pressuring newly elected president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to perform two favors: to pursue investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and to support a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. More than a week after Trump had put a hold on the previously approved military aid, he made the aforementioned requests in a July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president, which the whistleblower alleged was intended to help Trump's reelection bid.

Believing that critical military aid would be revoked, Zelensky made plans to announce investigations of the Bidens on the September 13 episode of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. After Trump was told of the whistleblower complaint in late August, and elements of the events had begun to leak, the aid was released on September 11 and the planned interview was cancelled. Trump declassified a non-verbatim transcript of the call on September 24, the day the impeachment inquiry began. The whistleblower's complaint was given to Congress the following day and subsequently released to the public. The White House corroborated several of the allegations, including that a record of the call between Trump and Zelensky had been stored in a highly restricted system in the White House normally reserved for classified information.

In October, three full Congressional committees (Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs) deposed witnesses including Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor, Laura Cooper (the top Pentagon official overseeing Ukraine-related U.S. policy), and former White House official Fiona Hill. Witnesses testified that Trump wanted Zelensky to publicly announce investigations into the Bidens and Burisma (a Ukrainian natural gas company on whose board Hunter Biden had served)[5][15] and 2016 election interference. On October 8, in a letter from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to House Speaker Pelosi, the White House officially responded that it would not cooperate with the investigation due to concerns including that there had not yet been a vote of the full House and that interviews of witnesses were being conducted behind closed doors. On October 17, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said, in response to a reporter's allegation of quid pro quo: "We do that all the time with foreign policy. Get over it." He walked back his comments later in the day, asserting that there had been "absolutely no quid pro quo" and that Trump had withheld military aid to Ukraine over concerns of the country's corruption.

On October 31, the House of Representatives voted 232–196 to establish procedures for public hearings, which started on November 13. As hearings began, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said President Trump may have committed bribery, which is specifically listed as an impeachable offense in the Constitution.[25] Private and public congressional testimony by twelve government witnesses in November 2019 presented evidence that Trump demanded political favors in exchange for official action. On December 3, the House Intelligence Committee published a report stating that "the impeachment inquiry has found that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection." On December 10, the House Judiciary Committee unveiled their articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress. Three days later, the Judiciary Committee voted along party lines (23–17) to approve both articles; the full House is expected to vote on them on December 18. On December 15, Chuck Schumer, in a letter to Mitch McConnell, called for four senior officials to testify in the expected Senate trial, and suggested pre-trial proceedings take place on January 6, 2020. On December 16, the House Judiciary Committee released its 658-page report, specifying criminal bribery and wire fraud charges as part of the abuse of power impeachment article. On December 18th, 2019 the House of Representatives voted 230-205 along party lines with 1 Independent saying yes, 9 democrats saying no and 5 republicans saying yes. Over the course of the inquiry support for impeachment against Trump remained stable and high around 48-56%, levels that Richard Nixon did not see until May, 1974.

Many conservative commentators and Republicans called the results partisan, an attack on the President, or a sabotage on his re-election efforts. Over the course of the next two months many Republicans in the Senate including Mitch McConnell refused to hold the expected Senate trial until all the evidence was in. The White House threatened to "shut down" any major legislation until the President was acquitted. Some of the more conservative members of the Republicans in Congress even suggested walking out or shutting down the government if a trail were to be held, while others knew that the Republicans would acquit Trump no matter what evidence was brought forward. On October 10th, 2019 two associates of Trump's then lawyer Rudy Giuliani were arrested and later found guilty. The Senate trails were eventually held beginning on January 16th, 2020 which lasted until February 2nd, 2020 when the Senate voted in a 52-48 vote not-guilty with Republican senator Mitt Romney voting "yay". Many non-Republicans felt that the trails were rushed to a "non-guilty" verdict to help legitimize Trump's presidency and re-election campaign and many protests broke out across the country as a result of the verdict. In spite of his acquittal, however, the allegations surrounding the President's associates continued: on February 18th, 2020 Trump's 2016 campaign manager Roger Stone who was arrested on November 15th, 2019, was found guilty of seven counts of witness tampering, obstructing official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements and was sentenced to 16-years in prison being eligible for parole in 2030.

Persian Gulf Crisis of 2019-21
Trump's withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was seen as the greatest foreign policy blunder of any US President since the Iraq War under the George W Bush administration. In the summer of 2019, an attack on a US military drone almost led the administration to declare war on Iran, before deciding not to start a war with Iran in the final moments. The move was criticized by many international organization around the world, foreign governments, the US Department of Defense, scholars and even 63% of the United States population in an opinion poll from 2018 said that the US should remain in the agreement. The United States announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the "Iran nuclear deal" or the "Iran deal", on May 8, 2018. In a joint statement responding to the U.S. withdrawal, the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom stated that United Nations Security Council resolution endorsing the nuclear deal remained the "binding international legal framework for the resolution of the dispute". On 17 May 2018 the European Commission announced its intention to implement the blocking statute of 1996 to declare U.S. sanctions against Iran illegal in Europe and ban European citizens and companies from complying with them. The commission also instructed the European Investment Bank to facilitate European companies' investment in Iran.

Immediately following the withdrawal US-Iranian relations plummeted to their lowest point since the Iran Revolution and the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1978-81. The Iranian government believed that the United States’ decision on 8 May 2018, to re-impose nuclear sanctions on Iran was a violation of the United States' international obligations, "especially articles 4, 7, 8, 9, 10" of JCPOA and the Treaty of Amity. Consequently, Iran filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice on 16 July 2018. Following the withdrawal from the deal new sanctions imposed by the US were immediately placed on Iran, causing massive economic issues in Iran leading to rapidly increasing political and social instability. On June 20, 2019, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's (IRGC) shot down a United States RQ-4A Global Hawk BAMS-D surveillance drone with a surface-to-air missile over the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials said that the drone violated their airspace, while U.S. officials responded that the drone was in international airspace. Both Iran and the U.S. differ on where the incident actually occurred. The incident occurred amid rising tensions between the two countries and nearly resulted in an armed confrontation. U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a military strike against IRGC radar and missile sites before reversing the decision. Instead, the U.S. retaliated with cyber attacks on the IRGC's missile-control systems (which Iran said were firewalled), announced new sanctions against several important Iranians, and requested a closed-door UN Security Council meeting to address the regional tensions. The United States created the International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC) in response to the crisis, which "increases overall surveillance and security in key waterways in the Middle East", according to the Deputy Secretary of Defense Michael Mulroy. A major flashpoint in the crisis occurred on 3 January 2020, when President Donald Trump approved the targeted killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was also killed in the drone attack. Some analysts warned that Iran might retaliate. "From Iran’s perspective, it is hard to imagine a more deliberately provocative act," said Robert Malley, the president of the think tank International Crisis Group. "And it is hard to imagine that Iran will not retaliate in a highly aggressive manner." In preparation for retaliatory attacks from Iran, the U.S. deployed an additional 3,000 ground troops to the Middle East, in addition to 14,000 already stationed there since May the previous year. To make matters worse on March 23rd, 2020 230,000 demonstrators, extremists, and militia members outside the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq stormed the complex in a movement that killed 8,389 Iraqi and 777 Iranian civilians and 323 US soldiers, holding all 77 necessary employees and the remaining 427 US soldiers in the embassy hostage demanding an end to US occupation of the nation, the US re-enter the 2015 JCPOA, end of all sanctions and military activity on both Iraq and Iran.

Following the takeover of the Baghdad embassy, world oil prices soared 11.3% the following day up from $69.03 a barrel on March 23rd to $76.83 on closing on March 24th peaking at $90.17 on June 3rd. Following this, many courses of action were proposed by the Trump administration including, bombing the embassy, sending a large amount of US troops into Baghdad to free them, along with cutting off resources and supply routes into Iraq and Iran. On April 19th, more sanctions were placed onto Iraq and Iran along with a US military blockade of supplies into both nations. While initially successful, this backfired however, as on May 1st, they began executing two hostages every week that the supply blockades were in effect leading to their withdrawal on July 11th after the execution of 20 US hostages. On November 4th, the day after Trump lost re-election 242 hostages, roughly half of them were released with another 121 released on January 20th, 2021 at 2 pm and the remainder of them released on February 12th, 2021.

The Economy and the Recession of 2020
Over the course of the year leading up to the election the one issue that seemed to be the biggest factor potentially contributing to Donald Trump winning re-election became one of his biggest weakness. In the third quarter of 2019, the US economy grew by 2.1%, however this slowed down to 0.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019 leading to a year of 1.9% GDP growth the slowest since 2016. In 2018, the US economy had its best year since 2015, with 2,674,000 being created, it's best year since 2015 which had 2,724,000 new jobs and a GDP growth rate of 2.9% matching the growth of 2015. In January, 2019 the US economy looked to be on this track as that month saw 312,000 new jobs being created however February, 2019 only saw 56,000 new jobs being created and in May, 2019 the yield curve between 10-year bonds and 3-month bonds inverted as the odds of a recession spiked to 30% its highest since early-2008. In the summer and fall of 2019, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates twice from 2.00% to 1.75% in August then from 1.75% to 1.50% in October. These measures temporarily halted the odds of a recession from increasing, however the threats of a trade war between the US and China still loomed and the UK entered a recession the following autumn. In November, 2019 the US economy added 230,000 jobs (initially was 266,000 but was revised in February, 2020), however, many of the jobs that month were temporary seasonal positions and 50,000 were from GM workers who returned to work after a strike was settled. Over the course of 2019, business confidence had been declining, and consumer confidence had plateaued from 2018 to November, 2019 while the economic optimism index had slowly been dropping since May, 2019. Home sales had peaked in 2018 along with new home construction and were down -2.1% that year, along with a small decrease in automobile sales. In July, 2019 the US had officially entered its longest expansionary period on record leading many to become even more cautious about a potential recession. December saw the job gain numbers decline to 93,000 and January, 2020 saw the numbers decline to 28,000 causing unemployment to increase from 3.5% in November to 4.1% in January. Business confidence continued to decline with the index reaching 47.2 in December, 2019 its lowest since the recession ended in June, 2009 and dropping to 46.0 in January, 2020 the lowest since May, 2009. The next month February, saw the first negative jobs report since September, 2010 at -156,000 causing unemployment to increase to 4.4%. In December, 2019 consumer confidence peaked at 99.3 before plummeting to 90.1 in January, 2020 much as it did in January and August, 2019 except this time it didn't immediately bounce back up. Consumer confidence continued to drop to 84.1 in February, 2020 then to 78.5 in March, 2020 before stabilizing around that rate only dropping to 74.1 in May, 2020. The federal government sought to hire more census workers than usual for the 2020 Census to offset the losses at 700,000 compared to 635,000 in 2010.

While census hiring did help to shadow some of the job losses in the spring of 2020, after the -156,000 job loss in February job losses to to a combined total of -35,000 for the spring months keeping the unemployment increase limited from 4.4% in February to 5.0% in May, it was only a matter of time before the census layoffs would cause a spike in the negative job numbers. The US economy which had grown 0.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019 shrunk 1.4% in the first quarter of 2020. The census layoffs began in late May, 2020 and continued until September, 2020 causing the job losses to increase from -19,000 in May to -579,000 in June, sending the unemployment rate up from 5.0% to 5.6%. Inevitably, once the census layoffs began affecting the job numbers, it triggered a psychological blow to the US population causing the economy to shed another -673,000 jobs in July sending the unemployment rate up to 6.1% then another -851,000 in August sending the unemployment rate up to 6.6%. The news did not improve much the next month as another -688,000 jobs were lost sending the unemployment rate up to 7.2%. In October, 2020 the rate of job losses began to decline to -339,000 as census layoffs were finished and businesses were starting to regan some profitability, however, it was too little too late. The business confidence rate reached its low in August, 2020 at 33.9 down from 44.1 in March, 2020 before rising to 38.0 in October and consumer confidence plummeted to 61.7 in October, 2020. By this point the unemployment rate was 7.5% and Trump's one remaining advantage to winning re-election was gone as his remaining support from independents from 37% in November, 2019 to 18% in August and September of 2020. The US economy shrunk -1.4% in the first quarter of 2020 before plummeting by another -6.5% in the second quarter of 2020 and -2.6% in the third quarter of 2020. However, the recession did end in November, 2020 as the US economy grew by 0.8% in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Primaries
With twenty major candidates entering the race, starting with John Delaney on July 28th, 2017, this was the largest presidential primary field for any party in American history.

Prior to the Iowa caucuses on February 3rd, 2020, Ojeda, Swalwell, Gravel, Hickenlooper, Inslee, Moulton, Gillibrand, de Blasio, Ryan, O'Rourke, Messam, Sestak, Booker, and Harris all withdrew due to low polling numbers. The polls in Iowa were in a deadlock heat between Sanders and Buttigieg with the final results showing 26.5% of the vote for Sanders followed by 25.0% for Buttigieg, Warren came in third with 20.4% of the vote, after which was Biden with 13.7%. Followed by a sizable victory for Sanders in the New Hampshire primary where he won 28.6% of the vote followed by Biden at 19.3%, Steyer dropped out and abandoned the race. Following the landslide victory for Biden in the South Carolina primary on February 29th, on March 1st Gabbard dropped out of the race. Following the Super Tuesday Primaries the Democratic primaries became a very contested race between Biden and Sanders where Biden was leading Sanders 603 delegates to 593, with Warren at third at 261 where she won her only contest with her home state of Massachusetts, followed by Buttigieg at 16. Following the Super Tuesday primaries Klobuchar and Bloomberg dropped out of the race with Klobuchar losing her home state of Minnesota and Bloomberg not even being allowed on any of the states ballots for that event. Following the primaries on March 10th, Biden slowly grew his delegate lead over Biden from 10 delegates out of 1,473 to 29 delegates out of 1,821 with a 764-735. The next primary that took place on March 17th, helped close the gap between Biden and Sanders down to 14 delegates out of 2,391 giving Biden a 1,001 to 987 lead.

On March 23rd, realizing he had no chance Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race leaving just 3 candidates left. Joe Biden's lead over Bernie Sanders widened again on March 24th with his decisive victory in Georgia giving him a 32 delegate lead over Sanders with 1,050 delegates to Sanders 1,018. Sanders won a decisive victory at Puerto Rico on March 29th cutting Biden's lead down to 21 delegates with Biden leading 1,070 to 1,049. On April 4th, the gap narrowed considerably with Sanders' landslide victories in Alaska, Hawaii and Wyoming down to just 4 delegates with Biden leading 1,106 to Sanders 1,102 and Warren 430, with the gap widening again on April 7th to just 5 delegates following a very narrow victory for Joe Biden in Wisconsin. Inevitably, on April 12th, Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the race on April 20th, announcing that there were not enough delegates left to make her the party's nominee where she immediately began endorsing Bernie Sanders. With the states of New York and Pennsylvania going very narrowly towards Biden by less than a single percent each, Connecticut going decisively towards Sanders and Delaware being a very decisive victory for Biden the gap in delegates between the two slowly widened again to 17 delegates with Biden leading Sanders 1,463 to 1,446. However, the Kansas and Guam primaries greatly narrowed the lead to its lowest point since April 4th with 5 delegates between Biden and Sanders, then the Indiana primaries on May 5th, finally gave Sanders the lead with 1,518 delegates to Biden's 1,515 delegates. The following contests from May 12th through June 6th only widened the lead that Sanders had over Biden from a mere 3 delegates after May 5th to 41 delegates after June 6th giving Sanders a 1,711 to 1,670 lead. On June 17th, Biden had won 52% of the pledged delegates 2,070 delegates while Biden had won 1,909 delegates. Out of the 764 unpledged delegates or "super-delegates" who were set to vote in the convention in July, Sanders won endorsements from 420 (55%), while Biden received 329 (43%).

Joe Biden formally dropped out on June 21st, 2020, stating that his main goal in the coming months would be to work with Sanders to defeat Trump in the general election, making him the first incumbent president to lose re-election since George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Aggregate Polls
Poll numbers verified as of November 3rd, 2020.