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538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 56.4% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2032 United States presidential election was the 62nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2032. The Democratic Party’s ticket - Gavin Newsom, the former governor of California, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the incumbent U.S. senator from New York — defeated incumbent Republican president JD Vance and incumbent vice-president Vivek Ramaswamy. Robert F. Kennedy Jr once again stood as an independent candidate alongside Tulsi Gabbard as his running-mate, following his run for President, endorsement of Donald Trump and failed nomination as Secretary for Health in the 2024 election cycle. Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez are scheduled to be sworn in as the 49th president and 52nd vice-president on January 20, 2033, after their formal election by the Electoral College.
Vance initially held strong approvals in 2029, before the 2030 Congressional Hacking scandal caused him to lose large support. Kamala Harris’ renomination and eventual defeat to Vance and Ramaswamy in the 2028 Presidential Election was seen as an awful decision, and most voters believed Gavin Newsom — who declined to run in 2028 due to Harris’ involvement — would have easily won the election. In the democratic primary, Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Josh Shapiro all received significant support. In February, Ocasio-Cortez withdrew and Newsom was confirmed as presumptive nominee ahead of schedule. The 2031 Iranian Revolution and Russian Invasion of Kazakhstan also caused more tension under the Vance Administration. At the 2032 Democratic National Convention, Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez were confirmed as the Democratic ticket.
On election day, Newsom won the popular vote and 286 electoral votes. Newsom became the first democrat since 1976 to win the state of Texas, with its 40 electoral votes carrying him to victory, he was also the first democrat to win North Carolina since 2008. Meanwhile Vance won 252 electoral votes, but was widely affected by RFK’s independent candidacy. However, Vance was still the first Republican to win Minnesota since 1972, New Hampshire since 2000 and New Jersey since 1988, also getting within 3.2% in the state of New York. The election marked the last time that Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan were considered “swing states” as they all shifted to the right, and was the first time that New York had been considered a swing state. The swing states in the election were Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Illinois and New Jersey.
In the Republican primary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr challenged JD Vance, however was easily defeated and instead ran as an independent
In the polls, voters most notably cared about the economy, healthcare, foreign policy, gun policy, abortion,and climate change. Polled voters consistently cited the economy as being the single most important issue in the election. Vance initially held strong approvals in 2029, before the 2030 Congressional Hacking scandal caused him to lose large support. Kamala Harris’s renomination and eventual defeat to Vance and Ramaswamy was seen as an awful decision, and most voters believed Gavin Newsom — who declined to run in 2028 due to Harris’ involvement — would have easily won the election.
The incumbent president, Joe Biden of the Democratic Party, initially ran for re-election with Harris as the party's presumptive nominee, facing little opposition; however, what was broadly considered a poor debate performance in June 2024 intensified concerns about his age and health, and led to calls within his party for him to leave the race. After initially declining to do so, Biden withdrew on July 21, becoming the first eligible incumbent president to withdraw since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who was voted the party's nominee by the delegates on August 5, 2024. Harris selected Walz as her running mate.
Trump, who had lost in 2020 to Biden, ran for re-election again. He was nominated during the 2024 Republican National Convention along with his running mate, Vance, after winning the Republican primaries. The Trump campaign was noted for making many false and misleading statements, including the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, engaging in anti-immigrant fearmongering, and promoting conspiracy theories. His speeches were widely described as marked by authoritarian and dehumanizing rhetoric toward his political opponents. His campaign and populist political movement were characterized by several historians and former Trump administration officials as featuring parallels to fascism.
In May 2024, Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime after he was found guilty on multiple felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels. He was previously found liable for sex abuse against E. Jean Carroll and for business fraud in New York. He was also twice impeached, once in 2019 and again in 2021. He remains under multiple indictments for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and his election racketeering prosecution in Georgia. Trump survived two assassination attempts in the four months before the election: the first at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the second at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
According to polls, the most important issues for voters were the economy, healthcare, democracy, foreign policy (notably U.S. support for Israel and for Ukraine), violent crime, immigration, gun policy, abortion, racial and ethnic inequality, and climate change. Education and LGBTQ rights were also prominent issues in the campaign. Polled voters consistently cited the economy as being the single most important issue in the election. According to Pew Research, immigration was the second-most important issue to Trump supporters but the least-important issue to Harris supporters.
Trump achieved a decisive victory, sweeping every swing state in addition to holding on to all of the states that he won in 2020. Trump won the national popular vote, making him the first Republican to do so since George W. Bush in 2004. He significantly improved his vote share among almost all demographics nationwide, particularly among Hispanic voters, in a working class coalition described as the most racially diverse for a Republican presidential candidate in decades. Having previously won in 2016, Trump became the second president elected to a non-consecutive second term, 132 years after Grover Cleveland defeated Benjamin Harrison in 1892; this was also the first election since 1892 in which the incumbent White House party was defeated in three consecutive elections. Trump, aged 78, is also the oldest person ever to be elected U.S. president; Vance, aged 40, is the first millennial to be elected vice president. Harris won 226 electoral votes, the worst performance for a Democratic presidential ticket since that of Michael Dukakis in 1988.