How To Become The President

Becoming the President is not for everyone. It will require a huge amount of work and energy to accomplish this goal. But once you get there, the rewards are great. The following are steps you need to take if you want to become president someday:

To become the President of the United States, you must be a natural-born citizen of the United States and at least 35 years old. You must also have lived in the country for at least 14 years. The president is elected to serve a four-year term and can only serve two terms in office.

You must also meet certain requirements before you can run for president. These include:

1) Be at least 35 years old

2) Have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years (can’t be from another country)

3) Be a natural born citizen of the U.S., not just born here but have had your parents or grandparents born here too (no double citizenship).

Find out more on what are the 5 requirements to be president, how to run for president as an independent in this article.

How To Become The President

Electoral College

In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens. Instead, they’re chosen by “electors” through a process called the Electoral College.

The process of using electors comes from the Constitution. It was a compromise between a popular vote by citizens and a vote in Congress.     

The Electors

Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress (House and Senate). Including Washington, D.C.’s three electors, there are currently 538 electors in all.

Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is chosen to be an elector, how, and when varies by state.

How Does the Electoral College Process Work?

After you cast your ballot for president, your vote goes to a statewide tally. In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the winner gets all the electoral votes for that state. Maine and Nebraska assign their electors using a proportional system.

A candidate needs the vote of at least 270 electors—more than half of all electors in the U.S.—to win the presidential election.

In most cases, a projected winner is announced on election night in November after you vote. But the actual Electoral College vote takes place in mid-December when the electors meet in their states. See the Electoral College timeline of events for the 2020 election.

While the Constitution does not require electors to vote for the candidate chosen by their state’s popular vote, some states do. The rare elector who votes for someone else may be fined, disqualified and replaced by a substitute elector, or potentially even prosecuted.  

Special Situations

Winning the Popular Vote but Losing the Election

It is possible to win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote.  This happened in 2016, in 2000, and three times in the 1800s.

What Happens if No Candidate Wins the Majority of Electoral Votes?

If no candidate receives the majority of electoral votes, the vote goes to the House of Representatives. House members choose the new president from among the top three candidates. The Senate elects the vice president from the remaining top two candidates.

This has only happened once. In 1824, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president.

How to Change the Electoral College

The Electoral College process is in the U.S. Constitution. It would take a constitutional amendment to change the process.

Overview of the Presidential Election Process

An election for president of the United States happens every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The most recent presidential election was November 3, 2020.Open All +

  • Primaries, Caucuses, and Political Conventions
  • What is the Role of the Electoral College?
  • What is a Typical Presidential Election Cycle?

Presidential Primaries and Caucuses

Before the general election, most candidates for president go through a series of state primaries and caucuses. Though primaries and caucuses are run differently, they both serve the same purpose. They let the states choose the major political parties’ nominees for the general election.

State Primaries and Caucuses for the Presidential Elections

  • State primaries are run by state and local governments. Voting happens through secret ballot.
  • Caucuses are private meetings run by political parties. They’re held at the county, district, or precinct level. In most, participants divide themselves into groups according to the candidate they support. Undecided voters form their own group. Each group gives speeches supporting its candidate and tries to get others to join its group. At the end, the number of voters in each group determines how many delegates each candidate has won.
  • Both primaries and caucuses can be “open,” “closed,” or some hybrid of the two.
    • During an open primary or caucus, people can vote for a candidate of any political party.
    • During a closed primary or caucus, only voters registered with that party can take part and vote.
    • “Semi-open” and “semi-closed” primaries and caucuses are variations of the two main types.

Awarding Delegates from the Primaries and Caucuses

At stake in each primary or caucus is a certain number of delegates. These are individuals who represent their state at national party conventions. The candidate who receives a majority of the party’s delegates wins the nomination. The parties have different numbers of delegates due to the rules involved in awarding them. Each party also has some unpledged delegates or superdelegates. These delegates are not bound to a specific candidate heading into the national convention.

When the primaries and caucuses are over, most political parties hold a national convention. This is when the winning candidates receive their nomination.

For information about your state’s presidential primaries or caucuses, contact your state election office or the political party of your choice.

U.S. Constitutional Requirements for Presidential Candidates

The president must:

  • Be a natural-born citizen of the United States
  • Be at least 35 years old
  • Have been a resident of the United States for 14 years

Anyone who meets these requirements can declare their candidacy for president. Once a candidate raises or spends more than $5,000 for their campaign, they must register with the Federal Election Commission. That includes naming a principal campaign committee to raise and spend campaign funds.

National Conventions

After the primaries and caucuses, most political parties hold national conventions.

What Happens at a National Political Convention?

Conventions finalize a party’s choice for presidential and vice presidential nominees.

To become the presidential nominee, a candidate typically has to win a majority of delegates. This usually happens through the party’s primaries and caucuses. It’s then  confirmed through a vote of the delegates at the national convention.

But if no candidate gets the majority of a party’s delegates during the primaries and caucuses, convention delegates choose the nominee. This happens through additional rounds of voting.

Types of Delegates at a National Convention

There are two main types of delegates:

  • Pledged, or bound delegates must support the candidate they were awarded to through the primary or caucus process.
  • Unpledged delegates or superdelegates can support any presidential candidate they choose.

Contested and Brokered Conventions

In rare cases, none of the party’s candidates has a majority of delegates going into the convention. The convention is considered “contested.” Delegates will then pick their presidential nominee through one or more rounds of voting. 

  • In the first round of voting, pledged delegates usually have to vote for the candidate they were awarded to at the start of the convention. Unpledged delegates don’t.
  • Superdelegates can’t vote in the first round unless a candidate already has enough delegates through primaries and caucuses to get the nomination.
  • If no nominee wins in the first round, the convention is considered “brokered.” The pledged delegates may choose any candidate in later rounds of voting. Superdelegates can vote in these later rounds.
  • Balloting continues until one candidate receives the required majority to win the nomination.

At the convention, the presidential nominee officially announces their selection of a vice presidential running mate.

how to run for president as an independent

Article two, section one of the United States Constitution discusses the procedures to be followed when electing the president of the United States, but it does not provide guidance for how to nominate a presidential candidate. Currently, candidates go through a series of state primaries and caucuses where, based on the number of votes they receive from the electorate, they are assigned a certain number of delegates who will vote for them at their party’s convention.

Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles, California, July, 1960

Earlier party conventions were raucous events, and delegates did not necessarily represent the electorate. Mrs. J.J. McCarthy describes her convention experience:

I can picture … the great Democratic convention of 1894 at the old coliseum in Omaha… right now I can hear the Hallelluiahs of the assembled. Oh how I wish I had back the youth and the enthusiasm I felt that night, I jumped on a chair and ask[ed] that by a rising vote the nomination be made unanimous, how the people yelled, how the packed gallories [sic] applauded, it cheers an old man now to think about it.

Though these conventions were attended by delegates sent from their respective states, delegates were often chosen by state and party bosses with sway over the delegates’ loyalties, instead of using the results of the primary elections; party bosses were accused of trading convention floor votes for power, patronage, or even cash. The excitement and corruption of party politics was not limited to the national arenas and big party players. E. R. Kaiser paints a picture of local party politics in the late 1800s:

Politics played a big part in the life of this town years ago. Campaigns were hot, and there was always a big celebration afterwards. … Votes used to be bought — that is before the secret ballot was adopted. Some sold ’em pretty cheap. I remember one old fellow who sold out to one party for a dollar — then sold out to the other for the same price.

Many sought to reform conventions that uniformly ignored the will of individual voters in their selection of presidential candidates.

In the first decade of the 1900s, states began to hold primary elections to select the delegates who would attend national nominating conventions. The introduction of these primary elections mitigated the corrupt control of party and state bosses. But the widespread adoption of primary elections was not immediate and so they did not play as strong a role in determining a party’s candidate as they do today.

In 1912, the first year in which a presidential candidate, two-time President Theodore Roosevelt, tried to secure his nomination through primary elections, nine states elected delegates that supported Roosevelt. Incumbent William Howard Taft won only one primary election. Despite Roosevelt’s wholesale victory of the popular vote, Taft received the Republican nomination because only 42% of the delegates who attended the nominating convention had been selected through primary elections. The rest had been selected by party bosses who supported Taft and succeeded in granting him their party’s nomination.

Republican National Convention, September 1-4, 2008. Republicans raise “Country First” signs as their leaders speak, St. Paul, Minnesota

Failing to win the Republican nomination, Roosevelt and his supporters formed the Progressive Party, or Bull Moose Party, with Roosevelt as its presidential candidate. Roosevelt failed to win the Presidency that year, but with the help of the Progressive party, our country’s primary system began to change. Fed up with corrupt party politics, Americans demanded and won reforms that reduced the power of party bosses. The introduction of the secret ballot had led the way in 1888. By the 1920s, almost every state had loosened the grip of political bosses and placed candidate selection more firmly in the hands of citizen voters.

As primaries were universally adopted as the method for selecting delegates, they became a more consequential part of the election process. Early primaries have taken on added importance as setting precedence and influencing the elections that follow in other states. Today, state legislatures capitalize on the importance of primaries and jockey for influence by scheduling their states’ primaries and caucuses as early as possible, forcing presidential candidates to cater to their states.

Unlike the heated back-room nominations of the past, normally there are few surprises at today’s national party conventions. Today, in 48 states, individuals participate in primaries or caucuses to elect delegates who support their presidential candidate of choice. At national party conventions, the presidential contender with the most state delegate votes wins the party nomination. Our extensive news media ensures that state delegate vote counts (and the apparent nominees) are well known before national conventions begin. As a result, modern national conventions don’t select candidates. Instead, they launch nominees and election themes that carry through the race to the White House.

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