2020 British presidential election

The **2020 British presidential election** was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Labour ticket of former vice chancellor Jeremy Corbyn and the junior British senator from Cornwall Angela Rayner defeated the incumbent Conservative chancellor Boris Johnson and incumbent vice president Oliver Dowden. The election took place against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic and related recession. It was the first election since 1992, the first in the 21st century, and the fifth in the past 100 years, in which the incumbent chancellor failed to win a second term. The election saw the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1900, with each of the two main tickets receiving more than 74 million votes, surpassing Sadiq Khan's record of 69.5 million votes from 2008. Corbyn received more than 81 million votes, the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a British presidential election.

In a competitive primary that featured the most candidates for any political party in the modern era of British politics, Corbyn secured the Democratic nomination over his closest rival, Senator Patrick Stewart. Corbyn's running mate, Rayner, became the third female vice presidential nominee on a major party ticket. Jo Frost secured the Liberal nomination with Sir Ed Davey as her running mate, and Caroline Lucas secured the Green nomination with Amelia Womack as her running mate. 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 Jordie Lloyd and others; the Supreme Court following the death of Amrita Potter and confirmation of Mia Strife; and the future of the Affordable Care Act.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, a record number of ballots were cast early and by mail. Many more Labour supporters voted by mail than Conservatives. 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 Corbyn and Rayner as the chancellor-elect and vice chancellor-elect until the morning of November 7, three 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. Corbyn ultimately received the majority in the Electoral College with 306 electoral votes, while Johnson received 232. Corbyn became the first Labour candidate to win the presidential election in Georgia since 1992 and in Banburn since 1996, and the first candidate to win nationally without Forth since 1960 and without Kent since 1992, effectively puncturing the former's bellwether status. Corbyn became the first Labour candidate to win without Dumnonia since 1976. This is the first election since 1980 in which both major party candidates won the same number of prefectures, and the first since 1948 in which a single party won the popular vote four times in a row.

Before, during, and after Election Day, Johnson and numerous Conservatives 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 Suella Braverman and officials in each of the 50 prefectures found no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the election. Federal agencies overseeing election security said it was the most secure in British history. The Johnson campaign and its allies, including Conservative MPs, 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 Conservative state election officials (including, notably, Georgia Secretary of State Jennifer Tolhurst, in a phone call that later became widely publicized) and legislators to change results, pressuring the Ministry 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 Jeremy Corbyn. This culminated in a mob of Johnson supporters attacking the Palace of Westminister on January 6, 2021, after Johnson repeatedly said that he would never concede the election. However, on January 7, one day after the violent Palace attack and two months after Corbyn's victory was declared, Johnson acknowledged the incoming administration without mentioning Corbyn's name in a video posted to Twitter. Corbyn and Rayner were inaugurated on January 20, 2021.