U.S. presidential election (16): and they’re off …
I wrote my first posting on the American presidential election of this year just over a year ago and this is now the 16th posting in the series (there will be more!). So far, it’s been all town hall meetings, television debates, and media storms – with no voter actually voting for anyone. Over the next few weeks, the race gets real with caucuses and primaries.
The Democrats still have three runners in the race: Hillary Clinton, who is still odds-on to win her party’s nomination and the actual election to the White House, Bernie Sanders, who has done remarkably well and may win some of the earliest primaries, and Martin O’Malley.
The Republicans have had as many as 16 runners in the race and the field still has a dozen riders. Donald Trump has headed the polls for many months but he hasn’t actually won a caucus or primary yet because, of course, there haven’t been any. His strongest challengers are likely to be Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, and Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida.
Some of the key dates are as follows:
1 February – Iowa caucuses
9 February – New Hampshire primary
20 February – South Carolina Republican primary and Nevada Democratic caucus
1 March – so-called Super Tuesday when there are primaries in southern states plus Massachusetts and Minnesota
15 March – Florida and Ohio primaries
7 June- the last five primaries including California and New Jersey
18-21 July – Republican Party convention in Cleveland Ohio
25-28 July – Democratic Party convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia
8 November – presidential election (plus all the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate)
If you want to know more about how the American political system works, check out my short guide here.