2020 Presidential Election (The Big Bear of the West)

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The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Liberal Alliance ticket of the senior U.S. senator from Texas George W. Bush and the mayor of Detroit Rashida Tlaib defeated the National incumbent president Paul Ryan and incumbent vice president Adam Laxalt. The election took place against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic and related recession. It was the first election since 2008, the second in the 21st century, and the sixth in the past 100 years, in which the incumbent president failed to win a second term. The election saw the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1880, with each of the two main tickets receiving more than ?? million votes, surpassing Nina Turner's record of ??.? million votes from 2008. Bush received more than 100 million votes, the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a U.S. presidential election.

In a competitive primary that featured the most candidates for any political party in the modern era of American politics, Bush secured the Alliance nomination over his closest rival, Governor Kanye West. Bush's running mate, Tlaib, became the first Muslim, second Arab-American, second Asian-American, and fourth female vice presidential nominee on a major party ticket. 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 murder of Ahmaud Arbery and others; and the future of both the Affordable Care Act and the Accessible Rent Act.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, a record number of ballots were cast early and by mail. Many more Liberals voted by mail than Nationals. 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 Bush and Tlaib as the president-elect and vice president-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. Bush ultimately received the majority in the Electoral College with 493 electoral votes, while Ryan received 41. This is the first election since since 1948 in which a single party won the popular vote four times in a row. Bush is also the first candidate since Richard Nixon to win a party's presidential nomination, and the subsequent election, after having lost in a previous presidential election.

Before, during, and after Election Day, Laxalt and numerous other Nationals 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 Amy Coney Barrett and officials in each of the 45 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 Ryan campaign and its allies, including National 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 National state election officials 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 George W. Bush. This culminated in Laxalt issuing a proclamation purporting to prevent both chambers of Congress from meeting to certify the count of electoral votes that would formalize Bush's victory on January 6, 2021. However, on January 14, one week afterwards and two months after Bush's victory was declared, Chief Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the Supreme Court certified the electoral vote count and declared Laxalt's purportation as unconstitutional. Bush and Tlaib were inaugurated on January 20, 2021.