The 2020 United States presidential election is scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, 2020. It will be the 59th quadrennial presidential election. Voters will select presidential electors who in turn will vote on December 14, 2020, to either elect a new president and vice president or reelect the incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence respectively. The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses are being held from February to August 2020. This nominating process is an indirect election, where voters cast ballots selecting a slate of delegates to a political party's nominating convention, who then, in turn, elect their party's nominees for president and vice president.

Donald Trump, the 45th and incumbent president, has launched a re-election campaign for the Republican primaries; several state Republican Party organizations have canceled their primaries in a show of support for his candidacy. Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee on March 17, 2020, after securing a majority of pledged delegates. 29 major candidates launched campaigns for the Democratic nomination, which became the largest field of candidates for any political party in the post-reform period of American politics. Former Vice President Joe Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee when Senator Bernie Sanders, the only other remaining major candidate in the Democratic primary, suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020. In early June, Biden passed the threshold of 1,991 delegates to gain the nomination at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

Biden and Trump are respectively the oldest and second-oldest major party presumptive presidential nominees in U.S. history; and if either of them is elected and inaugurated, they will also become the oldest serving president presuming they serve out their term. The winner of the 2020 presidential election is scheduled to be inaugurated on January 20, 2021.

Notable declared candidates

• Joe Biden (D)
• Howie Hawkins (G)
• Jo Jorgensen (L)
• Donald Trump (R)

Forecasting the US elections

The Economist is analysing polling, economic and demographic data to predict America’s elections in 2020. Right now, The Economist’s model thinks Joe Biden is very likely to beat Donald Trump in the electoral college.

	Chance of winning the electoral college	Chance of winning the most votes	Predicted range of electoral college votes (270 to win)
Joe Biden Democrat	around 9 in 10 or 92%	better than 19 in 20 or 99%	253-415
Donald Trump Republican	not quite 1 in 10 or 8%	not quite 1 in 20 or 1%	123-285

The probability of an electoral-college tie is < 1%

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Chance of winning each state

The Economist’s model combines the national prediction with polls and political-economic factors at the state level. We take into account that states that are similar are likely to move with each other; if Donald Trump wins Minnesota, he will probably win Wisconsin too.

Modelled popular vote on each day

Democratic presidential primary debates, 2019-2020

The following table provides an overview of the date, location, host, and number of participants in each scheduled 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate.

Republican primary debates
The Republican Party did not hold primary debates in the 2020 Democratic presidential election.

General election debates
The following table provides an overview of the date, location, and host in each scheduled 2020 general election debate.

Campaign finance

Democratic reports

The following chart shows Democratic presidential campaign fundraising, including both total receipts and contributions from individuals, as well as campaign spending. Figures for each candidate run through the end of March 2020 or through the final reporting period during which the candidate was actively campaigning for president. The total disbursements column includes operating expenditures, transfers to other committees, refunds, loan repayments, and other disbursements.

Republican reports

The following chart shows Republican presidential campaign fundraising, including both total receipts and contributions from individuals, as well as campaign spending. Figures for each candidate run through the end of March 2020 or through the final reporting period during which the candidate was actively campaigning for president. The total disbursements column includes operating expenditures, transfers to other committees, refunds, loan repayments, and other disbursements.

Impeachment

The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump on two counts on December 18, 2019. The trial in the Senate began on January 21, 2020, and ended on February 5, resulting in acquittal by the United States Senate.

This is the first time a president has been impeached during his first term and while running for a second term. Trump continued to hold campaign rallies during the impeachment. This is also the first time since the modern presidential primaries were established in 1911 that a president has been subjected to impeachment while the primary season was underway. The impeachment process overlapped with the primary campaigns, forcing senators running for the Democratic nomination to remain in Washington for the trial in the days before and after the Iowa caucuses.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

Several events related to the 2020 presidential election have been altered or postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. On March 10, following primary elections in six states, Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders cancelled planned campaign night events and further in-person campaigning and campaign rallies. On March 12, President Trump also stated his intent to postpone further campaign rallies. The 11th Democratic debate was held on March 15 without an audience at the CNN studios in Washington, D.C. Several states have also postponed their primaries to a later date, including Georgia, Kentucky,[31] Louisiana, Ohio, and Maryland. As of March 24, 2020, all major-party presidential candidates have halted in-person campaigning and campaign rallies over coronavirus concerns. Political analysts have stated that the moratorium on traditional campaigning coupled to the effects of the pandemic on the nation could have unpredictable effects on the voting populace and possibly, how the election will be conducted.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act included money for states to increase mail-in voting. The Trump campaign have strongly opposed mail-in-voting because they believe that it would cause widespread voter fraud, a belief which has been debunked by a number of media organizations.

Government response to the impact of the pandemic from the Trump administration, coupled to the differing positions taken by congressional Democrats and Republicans regarding economic stimulus remains a major campaign issue for both parties.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic spread in the United States, and the subsequent effects such as the stay-at-home order and social distancing guidelines by local governments, all presidential candidates are unable to hold campaign rallies and public gatherings. As a result, at the daily White House coronavirus briefing in April, Trump played a campaign-style video praising himself for his early response to the pandemic while lambasting his opponent and lambasting the press as "fake news media" in the process. According to Trump, it was the media who was initially "downplaying the effects of the virus." This behavior led to comments by pundits and the press that Trump is using the daily White House coronavirus briefings to replace his campaign rallies and benefit him politically.

On April 6, the Supreme Court and Republicans in the State Legislature of Wisconsin rebuffed Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers's request to move the election in Wisconsin to June. As a result, the election (among them was a presidential primary) went ahead as planned. At least seven new cases of the coronavirus infection were traced to this election. Voting-rights advocates have expressed fear of similar chaos on a nationwide scale in November, recommending states to move to expand vote-by-mail options.

On June 20, despite continuing concerns over COVID-19, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that Trump's campaign could hold a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) Center. Originally scheduled for June 19, the Trump campaign changed the date of this gathering due to the Juneteenth holiday. The rally was widely viewed as a failure, with attendances far lower than expected.