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The electoral map for the 2020 election.
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2020 U.S. presidential election | ||
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Primaries (Debates, Convention) • Party nominee • Opposition nominee • Chinese interference • General election | ||
← 2016 • 2020 • 2024 → |
The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennialpresidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Former president Selina Meyer and her running mate Jonah Ryan defeated incumbent president Laura Montez. This is the first election where both of the major party nominees were women.
The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses took place between February and June 2020, staggered among the 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. This nominating process was also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of delegates to a political party's nominating convention, who in turn elected their party's presidential nominee. The party's primaries were marked by a sharp contest between former president Selina Meyer and New York Senator Kemi Talbot. The candidacy of former New Hampshire Congressman Jonah Ryan drew controversy for racist and sexist remarks. Meyer secured the nomination at the party's brokered convention after selecting Ryan as her running mate. Laura Montez won the opposition party's nomination with no major competition.
During the primaries and the general election, the Chinese government had colluded with the Meyer campaign in an effort to help her win the nomination. The Chinese also helped rig the general election in favor of Meyer in exchange for the return of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. On election night, Meyer and Ryan emerged victorious against Montez. Meyer and Ryan were sworn in on January 20, 2021. This election marked Selina Meyer's first and only time winning a presidential election, having run three unsuccessful presidential campaigns.
Background[]
In April 2015, Selina Meyer originally planned on running for president in the 2020 presidential election, under the assumption that President Stuart Hughes would be running for re-election in the 2016 presidential election. The announcement that Hughes would not be running for re-election inspired Meyer to instead run in 2016 rather than 2020. Meyer would ascend to the presidency three months into her presidential campaign.
The 2016 presidential election ended with Laura Montez being elected president via contingent election, denying President Selina Meyer another term in office. Meyer left office discouraged, with the Montez administration having taken credit for the independence of Tibet, a milestone peace agreement that had been brokered in secret by Meyer in December 2016. However, in October 2018, a leak revealed to the public that Meyer was behind the Tibet deal all along, prompting her to re-evaluate her plan to run for president.
During Montez's presidency, the economy had recovered greatly from the 2016 banking crisis. She also crossed party lines and nominated former president Stuart Hughes to fulfill a vacant Supreme Court seat. Montez's party was able to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. However, the Tibet leak damaged Montez's popularity with the public.
Party primaries[]
See also: 2020 United States presidential primaries
Party ticket, 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Selina Meyer | Jonah Ryan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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for President | for Vice President | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
45th President of the United States (2016–2017) |
U.S. Representative from New Hampshire (2017–2019) |
Other major candidates[]
- Kemi Talbot, U.S. Senator from New York since 2013; (campaign)
- Buddy Calhoun, Governor of Nevada since 2018; Nevada Secretary of State until 2018; (campaign)
- Jonah Ryan, U.S. Representative from New Hampshire 2017 - 2019; (campaign)
- Tom James, U.S. Senator from Connecticut 2001 - 2013; Party nominee for vice president in 2016; (campaign)
Primaries[]
In January 2019, former Congressman Jonah Ryan became the first to announce his candidacy for president of the United States. In the following months, Meyer, Nevada Governor Buddy Calhoun, New York Senator Kemi Talbot, and 2016 vice presidential nominee Tom James all announced their candidacies for president.
The first primary debate was held on May 18, 2019; polls afterwards had Meyer winning. The following day, Meyer deputy campaign manager Amy Brookheimer announced she would be joining the Jonah Ryan campaign.
The first primary held was the Iowa caucus. Although it's not explicitly stated, it's implied that Talbot won. Meyer came in second place in Iowa. The following primary was New Hampshire, held on February 18, 2020, which Meyer won with 43% percent of the vote. Meyer previously won the state in the 2012 primaries but came in third place in New Hampshire in the 2016 primaries.
While campaigning for the South Carolina primary, Tom James withdrew his candidacy, but refused to endorse any candidate. On the day of the primary, several mysterious occurrences prevented largely African-American counties from going to the polls, resulting in Meyer winning South Carolina. Jonah Ryan, after the resignation of Bill Ericsson and Teddy Sykes, drew controversy by blaming Muslims for creating math, despite drawing some support and coming in third in South Carolina.
Super Tuesday was held on March 3, 2020, wherein the states of Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas held primaries. While the Meyer campaign spent the run-up to Super Tuesday campaigning in various states, the Jonah Ryan campaign focused mainly on the state of Florida, where they saw a possible path to victory. According to Kent, Meyer was leading in Texas by three points, North Carolina by eight points, and two in Massachusetts.
To coincide with Super Tuesday, the State of New York announced their investigation into The Meyer Fund has ended following the death of Meyer's ex-husband Andrew Meyer. However, the investigation was suspended on March 1 after the death of Andrew Meyer.
On April 15, 2020, Meyer accepted the Peace Summit Award in Oslo, Norway. During her trip, she sought asylum at the Norwegian embassy after being reported for war crimes during her tenure in office. During this time, Americans rallied to have Selina sent home. However, after it was revealed that the drone strike Meyer authorized also killed an elephant, the voters turned on Meyer.
Meanwhile, Jonah Ryan, while campaigning in Pennsylvania, caught chickenpox, which inadvertently led to the death of his father, Lloyd Hennick.
The subsequent 2020 primaries were victim to cyberattacks from the Chinese, who acted to give an advantage to Meyer. Their efforts were unsuccessful as Meyer left the primaries without a majority of the delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
Convention[]
See also: 2020 National Convention
The 2020 National Convention was held from July 23 - 26, 2020, at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Roger Furlong acted as chair of the convention. As no candidate achieved a majority of delegates in the primaries, the convention was noted by the press as being chaotic, with Meyer having a slight lead over Talbot in the delegate count.
On the third day of the convention, Jonah Ryan, who was in a distant third in the primary count, began gaining traction as a failed bombing attempt at the JFK airport in New York was revealed to be orchestrated by a muslim algebra teacher, feeding into his campaign rhetoric. While Meyer first considered former Ohio Governor John DeVito for the role as her running mate, she offered the role to Ryan as a last-ditch effort to win the party nomination.
On July 26, 2020, the final day of the convention, Selina Meyer and Jonah Ryan were named the party nominees by acclamation.
Opposition party primaries[]
Opposition party ticket, 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Laura Montez | ??? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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for President | for Vice President | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
46th President of the United States (2017–2021) |
??? |
It is the tradition in both parties that potential candidates stand down in deference to the incumbent president. Laura Montez won her party's nomination with no significant opposition.
General election[]
Chinese interference[]
See also: Chinese interference in the 2020 United States elections
Sometime before the 2020 presidential primaries, Lu privately expressed the desire for Laura Montez, Meyer's successor, to be re-elected the 2020 presidential election. In order to do this, Lu decided that Selina Meyer, running in the primaries, was the best candidate to lose against Montez in the general election.
On February 19, 2020, former Meyer staffer Mike McLintock was approached by a Chinese official at the Chinese consulate in Washington, D.C., wishing to pass along a message to Meyer on behalf of Lu: that Lu would be watching the election with great interest and would wish to return to their discussion about the Diaoyu islands in the near future. Meyer and her associates deciphered that China would be willing to rig the election in favor of Meyer.
On February 21, Meyer publicly pledged to recognize the Diaoyu islands as Chinese territory. The next day, she learned that her campaign manager Keith Quinn had connections to the Chinese, and that her campaign's faith-based initiative received an anonymous financial infusion of 25 million dollars. On the day of the South Carolina primary, several occurrences around the state involving curfews and voter disenfranchisement prevented a large African-American population from going to the polls. The people prevented from voting were primarily estimated to be supporters of Meyer's primary rival Kemi Talbot. Meyer was declared the winner of the South Carolina primary that night in a "decisive" victory.
On March 1, Meyer discovered from a translated note belonging to Quinn that the Chinese were helping Meyer's primary campaign so that she would lose against Montez in the general election. On April 15, while at the Nobel Summit in Oslo, Meyer confronted Lu about his plan to get Montez re-elected. Lu seemed reluctant to cut any kind of deal with Meyer until she suggested returning Tibet to Chinese sovereignty. Lu ecstatically accepted Meyer's offer.
During the general election, the Chinese likely interfered on behalf of Meyer as the return of Tibet was too great of an offer for them.
On January 21, 2021, Chinese tank movements were detected around the Tibetan area. Tibet would officially return to Chinese sovereignty sometime during Meyer's full term in office.
Results[]
Considering Montez's relative successes as president, including a flourishing economy and the bipartisan nomination of a Supreme Court Justice, it's likely that the Meyer-Ryan ticket faced an uphill battle against Montez. Despite being born in Connecticut, Montez claimed to be proud of her husband's Mexican heritage. This likely clashed with Jonah Ryan's vehement anti-immigration sentiments.
Election Day was held on November 3, 2020. The Meyer-Ryan ticket defeated incumbent president Laura Montez. They were sworn-in on January 20, 2021.