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US-POLITICS-VOTE-NUMBERS FACTS
US election in numbers
WASHINGTON, Nov 1, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The race for the White House
continues to break new ground and set records in 2020 — on early
voting, ad spending and more. These figures break down the campaign in
numbers.
3
November 3: That’s the date for the US presidential election,
congressional races, Senate contests and several state and local
races. Election Day is traditionally set for the Tuesday after the
first Monday in November.
10
10 key states: The presidential election is expected to come down
to results in 10 states where residents tend to vacillate in their
support between one party and the other.
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Iowa and Ohio were
essential for Donald Trump’s victory in 2016.
And polls show that Joe Biden could disrupt Republican electoral
power in Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Texas this year.
35 + 435
Besides voting for president, millions of American voters will also
be choosing members of the country’s 117th Congress. There are 35
Senate seats up for grabs, as are all 435 in the House of
Representatives.
Democrats currently hold power in the House, an advantage they are
unlikely to lose, according to experts.
If Biden is elected president and Democrats take control of the
Senate, the party will have its hands on all of the biggest levers of
federal power in Washington for the first time since the early days of
Barack Obama’s presidency.
270
American democracy is executed through a unique mechanism on the
national level: the Electoral College.
Rather than vote directly for their presidential candidate of
choice, Americans actually vote for 538 electors who then elect the
president.
To win the White House, a candidate must take an absolute majority
of electoral votes, making 270 the magic number.
The number of electoral votes granted to each state is calculated
by the number of representatives they send to the House (a number
which itself is based on population) plus their senators (two each).
230,000,000
There are 230 million Americans who are eligible to vote in the
presidential election, although a large portion often sit it out.
But the 2020 election could see record-high turnout.
Early voting has already exceeded previous years’ numbers, with
many voters preferring to fill out their ballots in advance to avoid
long lines on an Election Day taking place in the middle of the
coronavirus pandemic. As of Friday midday nearly 84 million people had
cast their ballots early.
Some 138 million Americans voted in 2016.
6,600,000,000
Campaigns have smashed spending records in 2020, with $6.6 billion
spent by the respective presidential candidates — $2 billion more
than was spent during the Trump-Clinton race four years ago, according
to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Biden campaign has pulled ahead on that front, flooding
airwaves in key states with political ads.
In total, more than $14 billion has been spent in the run-up to
November 3, with more than $7 billion of that going toward
congressional races.
BSS/AFP/MRU/0825hrs