2024 is a Presidential Election Year: A Primer for Foreign Nationals
This post will provide a high level description of how the United States will choose its next President. Immigration policy may be one of the most important differentiators between the candidates.
This post is for foreign nationals who might be living in the United States in a temporary visa status or possibly waiting to immigrate to the United States and who are not familiar with the U.S. political system and the way we choose Presidents. Note that this post will sound very basic to someone who follows U.S. politics closely…
Presidents are Elected every 4 Years.
In the United States, we elect Presidents every 4 years. 2024 is a Presidential Election Year. The President is the only political office where all Americans get to vote on the same competing candidates. Otherwise the officials we choose are based on where we live.
President Biden, of course, is the current President, and his current term ends in January 2025.
A President and Vice President run as “a ticket.” President Biden’s Vice President is Kamala Harris and is part of the ticket again in 2024. In theory, a President could choose another Vice President for a second term, but that is exceedingly rare.
The United States has 2 Main Political Parties.
The United States has two main political parties: The Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Republican Party is sometimes called the “Grand Old Party” and therefore sometimes you will see the abbreviation “GOP” to refer to the Republicans.
Republicans often use an Elephant to symbolize their party and the Democrats use a Donkey.
In recent years, the term “red states” refers to states controlled by Republicans and “blue states” are states controlled by Democrats and “purple states” or “swing states” are states that are closely divided. Often the race for President is decided by a limited number of swing states. This year, in 2024, the 6 swing states are often listed as Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia (although there may be other states that are close).
There are a variety of other smaller political parties but the Democrats and the Republicans are the two main parties. Apart from a handful of independents, the Congress is filled with Republicans and Democrats.
The current Congress is technically the 118th United States Congress. This Congress will end on January 3, 2025. The Congress is made up of two separate Houses - the U.S. Senate with 2 senators from each of the 50 states and 435 Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The 118th Congress is extremely closely divided between Democrats and Republicans.
The Democrats control the U.S. Senate with 48 Democrats and 3 independents who vote with Democrats and the Republicans control the U.S. House with a very narrow margin in the majority.
Primaries and Caucuses.
Each major political party uses a system of primaries and caucuses to determine who will be the nominee for their party to go into the General Election.
A Primary is just an election, but only among candidates of the same party. If people are voting in a primary, they are going to vote in the traditional way in a polling place and with ballots.
A Caucus is much weirder and involves going to various places based on geography (including people’s homes!) and the process is more ‘public’ but it is again limited to choosing among one party’s candidates. The most famous Caucus state is Iowa, which has the first Caucus each Presidential Election year. The Iowa Caucus is tonight! This article tries to explain the Iowa Caucus.
Some states have both caucuses and primaries, in an apparent effort to confuse everyone. Those states tend to be irrelevant (okay, maybe that’s more my own commentary coming out!)
This year, in 2024, the nominee for President for the Democratic Party will be President Biden, as is generally the case for a sitting President. Despite the nominee being known, there is still a series of primaries and caucuses to choose President Biden. There is only a token challenge to his nomination.
The Republicans initially had several candidates seeking the nomination of the Republican Party to go against President Biden but as of the time of this post (January 15, 2024), the leading candidates for the Republicans are former President Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and former South Carolina Governor and Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
Traditionally the first caucus state every 4 years was Iowa and the first primary state is New Hampshire, and the Republicans will keep that traditional structure in 2024 although the Democrats have, for various reasons, revised their order of caucuses and primaries. The first 3 states relevant to the Republican process are:
January 15 = Iowa Caucus.
January 23 = New Hampshire Primary.
February 6 = Nevada (not traditionally seen as a key state).
February 24 = South Carolina.
What is happening through the caucus and primary states is that the candidates are winning votes and collecting ‘delegates’ for the National Convention which will be in the summer. And it is actually the delegates at the National Conventions who nominate the person to serve as President (and the nominee chooses the Vice President).
Note that there are a lot of highly technical rules along the way and this is just a primer to get you the general idea!
The Convention.
In the summer preceding a President Election in November, each major political party will have a convention and that convention is when the official nominee is chosen but almost always the nominee is identified much earlier. But both parties will generally have their conventions in summer and then face-off for the “general election” in the fall.
The Republican Convention will be in July 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Democratic Convention will be in August 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
The “General Election” Campaign.
The General Election campaign is considered the period of time after the conventions of the major political parties up to the election in the first week of November. This year Election Day is November 5, 2024.
In the United States, elections are run by states and each state has different procedures for how to register to vote and how to actually vote. The process can differ widely in different states.
The Election and the Electoral College.
The process by which the President is elected is surprisingly complicated and in recent years that complexity has come under scrutiny.
The United States does total all the votes, but the person who becomes President is not always the person with the most votes. This is because of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a way of allocating power to the states and so each state has a certain number of electoral votes based on the number of Congressional districts which is based on the state’s population from the last Census. To win the Presidency, you have to win a majority of electoral college votes.
If you are interested in how the electoral college votes work out, consider making your own predictions on one of various online maps, like this one.
The Lame Duck Period and a new President sworn-in in January 2025.
After the Election Day in November, there is a period of time known as the “lame duck period” when the current President remains in office before a new one is sworn-in (or the existing one is sworn in again). The U.S. Constitution says the new President shall be sworn-in (inaugurated) on January 20 every 4 years, except if January 20 is a Sunday.
The next inauguration day is January 20, 2025.
I realize this post was kind of dull but I feel like there should be something ‘out there’ and accessible to foreign nationals who might want a general understanding of this process. U.S. immigration law and policy could change a lot depending on what happens in the election this year.
Thanks for sharing, excellent content! I'm curious about your insights on how the upcoming election might impact immigration policies depending on the winning party.
Thank you for sharing! This is super helpful!