2020 United States Presidential Election (ITEOAH)

The **2020 United States presidential election** was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Republican ticket of Incumbent Pennsylvania Senator and former First Lady Michelle Obama and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul defeated the Democratic ticket of Incumbent President Bernie Sanders and Vice President Elizabeth Warren. The election took place against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic and related recession. It was the first election since 1992 in which the incumbent president failed to win a second term. The election saw the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1900, with Obama winning over 83 million votes, surpassing her husband, Barack's record of 78 million votes from 2012, the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a U.S. presidential election. It also saw Obama become the first female President in American history.

In a competitive primary that featured the most candidates for any political party in the modern era of American politics, Obama secured the Republican presidential nomination over her closest rival, Senator Ted Cruz. Sanders secured re-nomination against token opposition in the Democratic primaries. Jo Jorgensen secured the Libertarian presidential nomination with Spike Cohen as her running mate, and Howie Hawkins secured the Green presidential nomination with Angela Nicole Walker as his running mate.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, a record number of ballots were cast early and by mail. Many more registered Republicans voted by mail than registered Democrats. As a result of a large number of mail-in ballots, some swing states saw delays in vote counting and reporting; this led to major news outlets delaying their projection of Obama and Paul as the president-elect and vice president-elect until noon of November 6, two and a half days after the election. Major media networks project a state for a candidate once there is high statistical confidence that the outstanding vote would be unlikely to prevent the projected winner from ultimately winning that state.

Obama ultimately received the majority in the Electoral College with 342 electoral votes, while Sanders received 196. Key to Obama's victory were her wins in the Democratic-leaning Great Lakes states of Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which Sanders carried in 2016 and whose combined 62 electoral votes were enough to swing the election to either candidate.

Before, during, and after Election Day, Sanders and numerous other Democrats attempted to subvert the election and overturn the results, falsely alleging widespread voter fraud and trying to influence the vote-counting process in swing states. Attorney General Stacey Abrams and officials in each of the 50 states found no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the election. Federal agencies overseeing election security said it was the most secure in American history. The Sanders campaign and its allies, including Democratic members of Congress, continued to engage in numerous attempts to overturn the results of the election by filing 63 lawsuits in several states (all of which were withdrawn or dismissed), spreading conspiracy theories alleging fraud, pressuring Democratic state election officials (including, notably, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, in a phone call that later became widely publicized) and legislators to change results, pressuring the Department of Justice to declare the election "corrupt" and intervene, objecting to the Electoral College certification in Congress, and refusing to cooperate with the presidential transition of Michelle Obama. This culminated in a mob of Sanders supporters attacking the United States Capitol and killing 27 people, and injuring over 200 people on January 6, 2021, after Sanders repeatedly said that he would never concede the election. On January 7, Sanders stood by his opinion, believing Obama to be a secret neo-Nazi, and terrorist group ANTIFA (Anti-Fascism), supported these claims. But either way, Sanders finally conceded on January 10, following an impeachment from the Republican congress which had now increased margins in the house and senate in a tsunami. The impeachment fell through, but Obama and Paul were sworn in on January 20, 2021. The central issues of the election included the public health and economic impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; civil unrest in reaction to the police murder of George Floyd and others; the Supreme Court following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and attempted nomination of Jacqueline Nguyen; and the future of the Affordable Care Act.

## Primaries:

### Democratic Primaries:

Sanders ran against only token competition in former West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, and he won the primaries easily.

 Bernie Sanders

### Republican Primaries:

The GOP saw a record shattering amount of candidates announced their run for their run for President. The main frontrunners near the end were both Senators, Ted Cruz of Texas, and former First Lady and Incumbent Senator from Pennsylvania Michelle Obama. Cruz's campaign was also dipped in controversy from Democrats, after Sanders called the leader of Ukraine and asked him to investigate Cruz. Though both campaigned hard, Obama won the nomination in the end. She then named Kentucky Senator Rand Paul as her running mate, due to the long history the Obama and Paul families shared with each other.

 Michelle Obama

## Campaign/Issues Unique to the Election:

### Democratic Campaign:

Sanders campaigned on the message of "Keep America Great," and promoting progressive values, and criticized Obama's lack of experience in elected office. Sanders also falsely accused Obama of being an anti-vaxxer which would ruin hope for removing COVID with the option of vaccines, which wasn't true, as Obama planned, to make more time to get vaccines developed.

### Republican Campaign:

The Obama and Paul families, along with supporters of the GOP and Libertarian parties, called out Sanders' inability to take control during the pandemic, along with multiple failures with the economy during his Presidency. The Obamas in particular, called out Sanders for bills that while helping social minorities, overruled several religious freedom laws, which they claimed was the prime source of why Sanders shouldn't win, and accused of him putting cancel culture and political correctness into government.

### The COVID-19 Pandemic:

In November 2019, COVID-19 infections had first broken out in Wuhan, China. China publicly reported the cluster on December 31, 2019. After China confirmed that the cluster of infections was caused by a novel infectious coronavirus on January 7, 2020, the CDC issued an official health advisory the following day. On January 20, the World Health Organization (WHO) and China both confirmed that human-to-human transmission had occurred. The CDC immediately activated its Emergency operations center (EOC) to respond to the outbreak in China. Also, the first report of a COVID-19 case in the U.S. was publicly reported, though the All of Us study (released in 2021) showed five states already had cases weeks earlier. After other cases were reported, on January 30, the WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) – its highest level of alarm – warning that "all countries should be prepared for containment." The same day, the CDC confirmed the first person-to-person case in the U.S. The next day, the country declared a public health emergency. Although by that date there were only seven known cases in the U.S., the HHS and CDC reported that there was a likelihood of further cases appearing in the country. The Sanders administration evacuated American nationals from Wuhan in January. On February 2, the U.S. enacted travel restrictions to and from China. On February 6, the earliest confirmed American death with COVID-19 (that of a 57-year-old woman) occurred in Santa Clara County, California. The CDC did not report its confirmation until April 21, by which point nine other COVID-19 deaths had occurred in Santa Clara County. The virus had been circulating undetected at least since early January and possibly as early as November. On February 25, the CDC warned the American public for the first time to prepare for a local outbreak. The next day, New York City saw the sickening of its "patient zero", Manhattan attorney Lawrence Garbuz, then thought to be the first community-acquired case. Another case known as "patient zero" in Los Angeles is a man named Gregg Garfield, who spent 64 days in the Burbank Hospital, on a ventilator for 30 days, with a 1% chance to live. Contracting the virus from a ski trip, Garfield was able to return to the slopes, although with fingers and toes amputated. In February, Vice President Elizabeth Warren took over for Secretary Alex Azar as chair of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

On June 20, 2020, Sanders's campaign held an in-person rally in Richmond, Virginia, after the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the event could go ahead despite continuing concerns over COVID-19. Attendance at the rally was far lower than expected, being described as a "flop." 7.7 million people watched the event on CBS News, a Saturday audience record for that channel. Three weeks after the rally, the Virginia State Department of Health recorded record numbers of cases of COVID-19, and former Democratic presidential candidate and California Governor Jerry Brown died of the virus, although it was not confirmed that he caught the disease due to his attendance at the rally.

Obama attacked Sanders frequently for his failure to control the virus and for being blatantly delusional with the virus, while Sanders claimed Obama wouldn't do any better with the control.

### Civil Unrest after George Floyd's Murder:

As a result of the murder of George Floyd and other incidents of police brutality against African Americans, combined with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of protests and a wider period of racial unrest erupted in mid-2020. This was followed by the Black Lives Matter movement, which protested police brutality against black people, and became a central point of the 2020 presidential campaign. Protests were as a rule peaceful; fewer than 4% involved property damage or violence (with most of the latter directed at BLM protesters themselves). However, according to a September 2020 estimate, arson, vandalism and looting caused about $1–2 billion in insured damage between May 26 and June 8, making this initial phase of the George Floyd protests the civil disorder event with the highest recorded damage in United States history.

Obama accused many rioters to be opportunists using Floyd's death as opportunity rather than protest police brutality, and she criticized Sanders for barely doing anything to peace the rioters.

### The Supreme Court:

With a Republican controlled congress, even with narrow margins, the GOP blocked Sanders's favored nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court, Jacqueline Nguyen. Sanders accused the GOP of not negotiating with the Dems for the nominee, while Obama attacked with two known facts: First, Ginsburg asked for a nominee if she died, only after the election, and secondly, the Democrats had made similar tactics to block Barack Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barret, in 2016.

### Future of the Affordable Care Act:

Sanders had passed the Affordable Care Act in 2017, granting Government paid healthcare, and Sanders planned to go farther and make a single payer healthcare with the Government. Obama accused Sanders of taking jobs of private healthcare owners, and she said in the first debate that "Sanders was allowing more government control than even a fascist leader, like Mussolini or Hitler."

## Results and Aftermath:

Obama would easily defeat Sanders due to high turn out from both in person and mail in voting. She managed to flip almost every state in the rust belt outside of Illinois and won many upsets in New England. Before, during, and after Election Day, Sanders and numerous other Democrats attempted to subvert the election and overturn the results, falsely alleging widespread voter fraud and trying to influence the vote-counting process in swing states. Attorney General Stacey Abrams and officials in each of the 50 states found no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the election. Federal agencies overseeing election security said it was the most secure in American history. The Sanders campaign and its allies, including Democratic members of Congress, continued to engage in numerous attempts to overturn the results of the election by filing 63 lawsuits in several states (all of which were withdrawn or dismissed), spreading conspiracy theories alleging fraud, pressuring Democratic state election officials (including, notably, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, in a phone call that later became widely publicized) and legislators to change results, pressuring the Department of Justice to declare the election "corrupt" and intervene, objecting to the Electoral College certification in Congress, and refusing to cooperate with the presidential transition of Michelle Obama.

This culminated in a mob of Sanders supporters attacking the United States Capitol and killing 27 people, and injuring over 200 people on January 6, 2021, after Sanders repeatedly said that he would never concede the election. On January 7, Sanders stood by his opinion, believing Obama to be a secret neo-Nazi, and terrorist group ANTIFA (Anti-Fascism), supported these claims. But either way, Sanders finally conceded on January 10, following an impeachment from the Republican congress which had now increased margins in the house and senate in a tsunami. The impeachment fell through, but Obama and Paul were sworn in on January 20, 2021. Sanders would die 5 years later on June 17, 2026.