Candidates, key states, funding… a few days before the American presidential election, which will end an acrimonious campaign, here are some figures on this highly anticipated meeting.
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Two candidates are campaigning in 2024: Republican and former President Donald Trump and Democrat and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Third-party candidates regularly try to enter the race, without succeeding in breaking the monopoly of the two main parties. This year, there will notably be the ecologist Jill Stein or the academic Cornel West, whose scores are expected to be very minimal.
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The American president is elected for a four-year term. He can only serve a maximum of two mandates, consecutive or not.
If Kamala Harris is elected in November, she could therefore run again in 2028, unlike Donald Trump if he were elected.
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The vote is scheduled for November 5. It traditionally takes place on the Tuesday following the first Monday of that month.
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The seven swing states, “key” or “pivot” states in French, are the keys to the election, because they do not clearly lean towards one party or another.
From Michigan to Arizona via Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are concentrating their final efforts there to snatch victory.
In an extremely close election, the presidency risks being decided by a few tens of thousands of votes.
34 and 435
Beyond the presidential election, Americans will also vote to renew Congress: 34 senatorial seats (out of 100) and the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are at stake.
In the upper house, senators are elected for six years. The Republicans hope to reverse the narrow Democratic majority.
Representatives serve a two-year term. The Democrats hope to reconquer this chamber, currently with a Republican majority.
538
In a ballot by indirect universal suffrage: Americans vote for 538 electors, who then designate the president. To be elected, the candidate must obtain the votes of 270 electors.
Each state has a different number of electors. It is calculated by adding the number of senators (two per state) to the number of elected representatives in the House of Representatives, which varies depending on the state’s population.
• Also read: Understanding the curious American electoral system
244 million
About 244 million Americans will be able to vote, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The 2018 and 2022 midterm elections, as well as the 2020 presidential election, saw the highest turnout rates for elections of this type in decades, according to the Pew Research Center.
For example, “around two thirds” of voters voted in 2020, “the highest rate for any national election since 1900”, according to the same source.
270 and 78 million
According to official figures, Democrat Kamala Harris’ team spent $270 million to finance her campaign in September. The Republican’s team spent only 78 million.
According to the New York Timesthe Democrat has raised more than a billion dollars since entering the campaign in July, after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race for the White House. Unheard of for a quarter of the campaign.
41 million
More than 41 million Americans voted in advance for the 2024 election, according to Sunday’s count from the University of Florida.
Across the United States, voters can vote by mail, or in person early, before election day on November 5.
