MAJOR ELECTIONS •

2. Major elections

The US presidential election

• Holding the election

• The US president is elected every 4 year => 4-year term. They can stand for re-election only once => 2 consecutive terms maximum.
• Presidential elections are held in early November on Election Day (always a Tuesday). The winner becomes the president-elect and will officially become president on Inauguration Day in January, around the 20th.

• Winning the party nomination

• In 2024, the Republican primaries opposed many contenders in a bitter fight. Donald Trump won the primaries and became the Democratic official presidential candidate. He chose J.D. Vance to be his vice-presidential candidate, thus forming the Republican ticket. In the Democratic party there was no race for the nomination as Joe Biden and Kamal Harris already were in power and running for re-election and should have been the Democratic party ticket. However, too weak to win, Joe Biden stepped down and endorsed Kamala Harris who became the new Democratic presidential nominee and chose Tim Waltz as VP.
• Generally speaking, to become the official party candidate, the contenders first have to win their party primaries taking place in each US state from January to June, then to win the party nomination in the summer party conventions where they will form the party official presidential tickets (president + vice-president -VP).
!! The VP is not the equivalent of a Prime Minister. In the US the president is both head of state and head of government as it is a presidential system.

• Winning the presidential election

• To become president, a candidate has to win a simple majority of the 538 electors of the electoral college. It’s an indirect election : American voters elect the electors of each state (the popular vote) forming the electoral college who then elect the president (electoral vote).
• Only the electoral vote matters as demonstrated by Donald Trump’s 2016 victory although he lost the popular vote with 47% of the votes to Hillary Clinton's 48%. It shows that the popular vote is only symbolical to show that in a federation, the states elect the federal president.

Vocabulary
• current: actuel. actual: real.
• MP: member of Parliament - in fact member of the House of Commons. PM: prime minister.
• a general election: une élection législative (GE). a snap election: une élection anticipée.
• a simple majority: majorité absolue. a simple plurality: majorité relative.
• Brexit: the UK leaving the EU in January 2020 after the June 2016 referendum.
• to nominate: nominer. to appoint: nommer. to resign: démissionner.
• a voter: un électeur. an elector: un grand électeur dans un suffrage indirect.