US presidential elections

The 2020 election is the 59th quadrennial presidential election. Incumbent President Donald Trump will be challenged by Democratic former vice president Joe Biden for the top post. While Biden selected Kamala Harris to be his running mate, Trump endorsed the name of incumbent vice president Mike Pence. In the last election, held in 2016, Trump defeated Democrat and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.This was the fifth presidential election in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote. While Hillary won 2.87 million more votes than Trump did, the latter received the majority in the Electoral College. Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton 227. The run-up to the 2016 elections was marred by allegations of Russian interference in the elections to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process and to denigrate presidential candidate Hillary Clinton". In January 2017, the US government's intelligence agencies found the involvement of the Russian government in the 2016 polls. In this election, Trump administration's response to Coronavirus, protest against killings of African American, the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the future of Affordable Care Act are some of the issues hogging the limelight in this election. While Trump secured Republican nomination without much opposition, Biden was selected as the Democratic nomination over his closest rival, Senator Bernie Sanders. The Democratic primaries were termed as one of the most-competitive seen in the recent US election history. It saw one of the largest pool of presidential candidates for any political party. If elected, Biden would become the oldest person to serve as president at 78 years old. This is the first presidential election in US history where both the presidential candidates are over 70. Seventy-four-year-old Trump is the oldest first-term US president. The winner of the 2020 US presidential election will take oath as the 46th US president on January 20, 2021. The coronavirus pandemic meant that a record 90 million people — about 65% of the total turnout in 2016 — have voted three-day before the scheduled date of November 3. A lot of people are also voting early to avoid long queues and crowds at a time when coronavirus has claimed the lives of 230k people in the country.