Who's going to be president? An opinion poll

Patrick Bardelli

24.7.2019

Translation: Eva Francis

The United States presidential election will take place on 3 November 2020. Will Donald Trump remain in office or will he be replaced by one of his many Democratic challengers? We want to know what you think.

Donald Trump wants to stay on as president of the United States for another four years. He is therefore running on the Republican ticket again in the election of 3 November 2020. There are currently numerous Democratic challengers, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden probably being the most famous ones.

Your opinion

Speaking of opinion polls

Exactly 195 years ago, on 24 July 1824, the US newspaper Harrisburg Pennsylvanian published the world's first opinion poll. It asked about people’s opinion on who’d win the presidential election, which was held from 26 October to 2 December 1824 and is generally regarded to have marked a major turning point in presidential elections. In the years before that, the US had been a one-party state, since the Federalist party was dissolved and only the Democratic-Republican party remained. This election split the party split, as four Democratic-Republican candidates ran for the presidency.

Those led by Andrew Jackson later developed into today's Democratic Party while the part led by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay later became the National Republican Party, from which the United States Whig Party emerged in the mid-1830s.

The newspaper's question: «Who will be the next president of the United States?» was answered by 524 readers of the approximately 3,000 people who lived in the small town of Harrisburg at the time. Around 60 percent predicted Democrat Andrew Jackson to win the elections – the wrong guess, as future would show.

This election was the only one to require a contingent election in the House of Representatives under the provisions of the 12th Amendment, as no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote. It’s also said to be the first election that didn’t see a president win the Popular Vote. However, this is difficult to verify, since a quarter of the states didn’t hold elections in the true sense – the respective parliaments elected the electors.

Because no candidate managed to win a majority of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives had to decide who was going to be the next president. This is how John Quincy Adams was elected as the sixth president of the United States.

I’m also running... not for the presidency, but for the post of one of the authors you follow. Here’s my profile aka polling spot.

Patrick Bardelli

Senior Editor

Patrick.Bardelli@digitecgalaxus.ch

From radio journalist to product tester and storyteller, jogger to gravel bike novice and fitness enthusiast with barbells and dumbbells. I'm excited to see where the journey'll take me next.

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