page_title: Timeline of the 2020 United States presidential election
section_title: January 2020
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of the 2020 United States presidential election / 2020 / January 2020
caption_attribution_description: Former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden speaking with supporters at a phone bank at his presidential campaign office in Des Moines, Iowa. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere.
context_page_description: The following is a timeline of major events leading up, during, and after the 2020 United States presidential election, the 59th quadrennial United States presidential election. President Donald Trump of the Republican Party, who was elected in 2016, is seeking reelection to a second term. The presidential primaries and caucuses are scheduled to be held between February and August 2020, staggered among the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories. On April 8, former vice president Joe Biden became the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. The general election is scheduled to be held on November 3. The U.S. Congress is then scheduled to certify the electoral result on January 5, 2021, and the new or incumbent president and vice president will be inaugurated on January 20, 2021.
context_section_description: January 2:
  Castro drops out of the Democratic primary, after failing to gain traction in the race and struggling to raise enough money to stay solvent.
  Struggling financially, Williamson lays off her entire campaign staff but pledges to stay in the race with just volunteers.
  January 6: Former Rhode Island governor and senator Lincoln Chafee announces his candidacy for the Libertarian Party nomination.
  January 10:
  Williamson drops out of the Democratic primary, eight days after laying off her entire campaign staff.
  Six candidates qualify for the seventh Democratic debate.
  January 13: Struggling financially, and facing the prospect of being forced off the campaign trail to attend the impeachment trial of Donald Trump in his capacity as a senator, Booker drops out of the Democratic primary.
  January 14: The seventh Democratic debate takes place at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
  January 15–16: The House of Representatives appoints impeachment managers, who then formally present the articles of impeachment to the Senate to begin the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. This forces the remaining senators running for the Democratic nomination (Bennet, Klobuchar, Sanders, and Warren) off the campaign trail on the days when the trial is in session.
  January 17:
  The United States Supreme Court agrees to combine and hear Colorado Department of State v. Baca and Chiafalo v. Washington to resolve the question as to whether states can constitutionally punish faithless electors, a ruling that could fundamentally change the outcome of 2020 and future presidential elections.
  Start of early voting: Minnesota
  January 18:
  Start of early voting: Vermont, Virginia Democratic primary (In-Person Absentee)
  The first of a series of North Dakota Republican Party district conventions, which elect delegates to the state party convention. The North Dakota Republican Party does not hold any presidential preference caucus or primary per se, but instead selects their national convention delegates directly at the state party convention.
  January 20: Eight Democratic candidates appear at the Iowa Brown and Black Forum in Des Moines, Iowa.
  January 21: The first case of COVID-19 in the U.S. is confirmed in Washington state.
  January 25: Start of early voting: Michigan
  January 28: The Lesser-Known Candidates Forum takes place at New Hampshire Institute of Politics on the campus of Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, featuring 17 Republican and 33 Democratic minor candidates.
  January 30: The World Health Organization (WHO) declares the COVID-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
  January 31:
  Unable to gain traction, Delaney drops out of the Democratic race, stating that he does not want to take support from other candidates in the upcoming Iowa caucuses.
  The Democratic National Committee removes the donor qualification requirements for the ninth and subsequent Democratic debates, paving the way for Bloomberg to participate since he is primarily using his own money instead of accepting individual donations. Several of Bloomberg's opponents complain that this is basically changing the rules in the middle of the game.
  A group of six Democratic National Committee members discuss potential rule changes designed to weaken Sanders's surging campaign and head off a brokered convention. A DNC spokesman later dismisses the idea.
  January 31: The Kansas Republican Convention assembles, where the second delegation to the national convention is chosen and officially bound to Trump.
caption: Biden speaking to supporters at his campaign office in Des Moines, Iowa, January 13, 2020
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