Talk:2020 United States presidential election

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Frequently asked questions

This section is here to provide answers to some questions that have been previously discussed on this talk page.

Note: This FAQ is only here to let people know that these points have previously been addressed, not to prevent any further discussion of these issues.

Q1: Why does the article call President Trump's statements about the integrity and legitimacy of the election "false"?

A1: Because reliable sources call his statements false. Though Trump often classifies these sources as "fake news", the consensus of other reliable non-news sources and Wikipedia editors is that they are reliable. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia reflects these sources, which may not align with any one individual's statements on the matter. (See also WP:TRUTH)

Q2: Why does(n't) this article use [this specific source]?

A2: As mentioned above, Wikipedia is based on what reliable sources say. A basic definition of a reliable sources is that they publish reputable, accurate articles along with fact-checking them. Some sources are repeatedly discussed on if they are actually reliable with some sources being generally unreliable and should be avoided when possible or even deprecated which restricts their use to only articles describing themselves.

Q3: Why is Kanye West/Jo Jorgensen/Howie Hawkins/[other third party candidate] not included in the infobox at the top of this article?

A3: A consensus was reached in this discussion among Wikipedia editors to only include candidates who received at least 5% of the popular vote in the infobox. Changes to this decision must also reflect consensus.

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

2020 United States presidential election was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 2, 2006	Articles for deletion	Deleted
October 30, 2015	Articles for deletion	Kept
November 1, 2015	Good article nominee	Not listed
March 1, 2017	Articles for deletion	Kept
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 22, 2015. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that potential candidates in the United States presidential election of 2020* include Tom Cotton, Hillary Clinton, and Kanye West?*
A news item involving this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "In the news" column on November 7, 2020.
Current status: Former good article nominee

While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard.

Elections and Referendums

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United States: Presidential elections / Government / History Mid‑importance

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Presidents of the United States: Donald Trump Mid‑importance

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Noam Cohen (October 26, 2020). "Wikipedia's Plan to Resist Election Day Misinformation". Wired.
Sara Morrison (November 2, 2020). "How Wikipedia is preparing for Election Day". Vox.

Warning: active arbitration remedies

The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article is related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing this article:

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This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2020 and 2024.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 13 times. The weeks in which this happened:

Consensuses reached for the 2012 and 2016 elections apply for the 2020 election as well, unless these consensuses are reversed.

Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria (post-election):
A consensus has been reached to only include candidates who received at least 5% of the popular vote in the infobox.

Consensuses on pre-election presentation of candidates

Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria (pre-election):
A consensus has been reached to make it so that the political parties that earned at least one electoral vote in the previous election are to, by default, be included in the infobox of the article about the next election. This means that, as of right now, only the Republican and Democratic parties are to be included in the infobox. Currently, third parties are only to be included in the infobox prior to the election if they are polling, on average, over 5% per this consensus: Rfc on inclusion for the infobox.

Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria for state subpages (pre-election):
A consensus has been reached to include candidates in the infoboxes of state subpages who are polling at an average of at least 5% in a state or are the nominees of parties whose candidates received 5% in a state in the last election.

Consensus on the order of candidates in the infobox (pre-election):

Parties that got at least one electoral vote in the 2016 election will be the first to appear in the infobox and will be ordered by how many electoral votes they got in 2016. Since the Republican Party got 306 electoral votes and the Democratic Party got 232, the Republican Party will be the first to appear in the infobox and the Democratic Party will be the second.
Some political parties that may in the future be qualified to appear in the infobox did not get any electoral votes in 2016. They will be ordered by the total amount of electoral votes in the states that have ballot access. Write-in access counts too.
- If two or more parties have access to the same amount of electoral votes, they will be sorted by how many popular votes they got in 2016. If one of the parties did not participate in the 2016 election, they will be be ordered after the parties (with the access to the same amount of electoral votes) that did. If two or more parties both have access to the same amount of electoral votes and did not participate in the 2016 election, they will be sorted alphabetically by the candidates' names.

Consensus on the criteria for a potential candidate to be included in the article:

The "Publicly expressed interest" section requires only one source from the last six months where the individual is quoted as being interested in running in 2020. Social media posts do not count as public expressions of interest.
The "Potential candidates" section requires at least two sources speculating that an individual may run or where an individual talks about the 2020 election from any point after the 2016 election (since November 9, 2016). The sources must not be a list of several potential candidates nor a persuasive article about why a candidate should run.
The "Declined candidates" section requires at least two sources from any point after the 2016 election (since November 9, 2016). One source must be speculative in the same vein as the "Potential candidates" section, while the second must be a quoted denial from the individual in question.

The following images have been discussed:

Joe Biden (consensus link)

Consensus

Consensus on when to update the popular vote:

Initial: The popular vote tally and percentage should be updated twelve hours after polls close, and then every six hours thereafter.
Superseded: A consensus was agreed upon to shorten the time between updates.

Section sizes

Section size for 2020 United States presidential election (79 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	46,948	46,948
Background	9,209	9,209
Nominations	196	11,984
Democratic Party	3,386	3,386
Republican Party	2,834	2,834
Libertarian Party	2,083	2,083
Green Party	3,485	3,485
General election campaigns	33	143,023
Ballot access	3,308	3,308
Party conventions	9,938	9,938
Issues unique to the election	38	96,793
Impeachment	2,548	2,548
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic	26,723	26,723
Foreign interference	21,679	21,679
Trump's potential rejection of election results	14,773	14,773
Election delay suggestion	5,368	5,368
Postal voting	11,972	11,972
Federal Election Commission issues	2,144	2,144
Supreme Court vacancy	8,207	8,207
Pre-election litigation	3,341	3,341
Debates	23,245	23,245
Polling	177	8,758
Two-way	118	118
Four-way	120	120
Swing states	306	306
Predictions	8,037	8,037
Endorsements	273	273
Total cost estimate	675	675
Campaign issues	22	33,847
COVID-19 pandemic	5,041	5,041
Economy	3,103	3,103
Environment	1,917	1,917
Health care	2,536	2,536
Racial unrest	6,801	6,801
Exit poll	14,427	14,427
Timeline	82	82
Results	196	64,606
Statistics	22,154	22,154
Election calls	5,786	5,786
OSCE election monitoring	5,650	5,650
Electoral results	2,941	2,941
Results by state	20,704	20,704
States and EV districts that flipped from Republican to Democratic	211	211
Close states	3,668	3,668
County statistics	1,233	1,233
Maps	2,063	2,063
Voter demographics	17,221	35,874
Voting patterns by ethnicity	37	14,118
Hispanic and Latino voters	4,652	4,652
Black voters	2,187	2,187
Asian American and Pacific Island voters	1,532	1,532
Indian American voters	1,854	1,854
American Indian and Alaska Native voters	3,856	3,856
Polling accuracy	4,535	4,535
Aftermath	96	118,919
Election night	6,242	6,242
Late counting	20,787	20,787
Election protests	2,237	2,237
False claims of fraud	23,148	23,148
Lawsuits	4,419	6,908
Texas v. Pennsylvania	2,489	2,489
Trump's refusal to concede	5,976	5,976
GSA delays certifying Biden as president-elect	1,546	1,546
Attempts to delay or deny election results	5,779	5,779
Plot for state legislatures to choose electors	3,876	3,876
Pressure on state and local officials	7,193	7,193
Recounts	5,731	5,731
Electoral College votes	3,962	3,962
Certification and January 6th	16,170	16,170
Post-certification	3,242	3,242
Election audits	3,523	3,523
Viewership	2,503	2,503
See also	284	284
Notes	87	87
References	4,701	4,701
Further reading	3,259	5,312
Voter fraud	1,109	1,109
Policy implications	944	944
External links	1,836	1,836
Total	476,712	476,712

Semi-protected edit request on 4 March 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I want to exit to make images and history correct President Fan257 (talk) 01:01, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oops i accidently put x instead of d President Fan257 (talk) 01:02, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone may add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:09, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have a account President Fan257 (talk) 01:33, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 11 March 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

To make history correct 12.216.99.3 (talk) 13:07, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please specify the requested changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide reliable sources if appropriate. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 13:19, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Trump-Sanders voter article

I believe we should merge the 2020 section of Sanders–Trump voters into this article.

It seems to be singling out Sanders->Trump defectors because mainstream democrats particularly dislike Trump, but it’s not important enough to warrant its own article and should be merged with the general about the elections.

Points:

There’s nothing fundamentally unique about disenfranchised voters switching to opposing candidates.

The number of votes isn’t remarkable. Even the much maligned Ralph Nader got almost three percent of the general election votes, as opposed to the 6-12 percent _of sanders supporters_ that defected.

People switch their votes. People get mad. People make both rational and irrational decisions when deciding who to vote for. That’s just how elections work. Andythechef (talk) 02:33, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"described as coup de tat" -

After the last word and before the period 'by some media corporations despite having no evidence' should be added to reflect truth in publishing. 2600:1700:5850:E300:156F:199C:2605:21A5 (talk) 17:58, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]