Each four years, tens of millions of Americans head to the polls to vote for a president. While most people have a general idea of who they’d like to see as their president, candidates need to go through the process of getting the support of political parties before they can officially run for the presidency. After that, candidates spend a long time campaigning in different states to explain their plans and views to society.
It’s important to note that it’s not the most popular candidate that wins on Election Day; the election is actually decided by the Electoral College. Because most states have a winner-takes-all system for their electoral votes (except Maine and Nebraska), it’s possible to win a significant number of electors by winning just a few key “swing” states.
As of October 7, Kamala Harris holds a roughly two-point lead over Donald Trump in the national polls. The race is still relatively close, however, as a small share of the electorate remains undecided or open to changing their minds.
Ahead of Election Day, the presidential candidates spend months focusing on a handful of so-called swing states. The Electoral College is controversial because it encourages candidates to focus exponentially more time and money on these states, where the population skews heavily Republican or Democratic. This can make it difficult for a non-majority candidate to become president—and it’s happened before. In 1916, for example, Teddy Roosevelt broke with the Republicans to form a third party and run as their progressive “Bull Moose” candidate—but ended up handing Woodrow Wilson victory by splitting the Republican vote.