US Presidential Elections 2020: How is POTUS elected? Can Trump lose the vote & still win?

The preparations for US elections scheduled for November 3 are in full swing despite the setback to Republican campaign after US President Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on October 2. With US elections only a month away, Trump’s popularity has declined, according to poll surveys, due to the failed COVID-19 response which has already claimed over 200,000 lives in the United States.

However, it is still possible for the US President to return to power even if he fails to win the popular vote, just like he did in 2016. While the US citizens vote for either incumbent Donald Trump or his Democratic rival Joe Biden, they won’t be directly responsible for the election of the next US President because of the electoral system.

What is the Electoral College?

US citizens technically vote for “electors” and not the presidential candidates themselves, who subsequently elect the President. However, the electors, usually state officials or senior party leaders who make up the electoral college, are not named on the ballot. The electoral college refers to a group of people with a shared task of choosing the president and vice-president. The electoral college meets every four years to carry out the task once the election results are out.

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All US states and Washington DC have a fixed number of electors in the electoral college based on the size of the state. Each state gets at least three electoral votes, which represent the sum of state Senators and Representatives. District of Columbia has neither Senators nor Representatives in Congress but the 23rd Amendment gave it three electoral votes.

All states except Maine and Nebraska use a winner-takes-all system, which means a candidate winning the most votes in those states takes its entire haul of electoral votes. The margin of winning popular vote could be very low in a state with a greater population, assuring more number of electoral votes. 

A party winning a state, which has a comparatively lesser population and subsequently lesser electoral vote, with high margin could ensure more popular votes but less electoral votes. There have been five US Presidents in the history of the United States, including Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote. So, it remains a possibility for 2020 elections that a candidate wins the popular vote yet loses the electoral vote.

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