All you need to know about the US 2020 presidential elections

On February 3, the people in the US State of Iowa will come together to select their preferred candidate for the US 2020 presidential election.

This will kick off nearly ten month-long election season in the country, which culminates on November 3, when the presidential elections are conducted.

There are two reasons why the Iowa caucuses are interesting: one, the winner of the election could have the momentum going ahead, and others might drop out; and two, the State has been a swing state.

In 2012, Iowa voted for Obama and in 2016, they voted for Trump, who contested on a Republican ticket. However, the State flipped again in 2018, and the Democrats won three of the four congressional seats.

So, who are the candidates? What’s their stand? And, how are they selected? Here are the answers to all of your questions.

The candidates

This time around, the candidates seeking to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidential election are diverse and represent different political ideologies – from Senator Bernie Sanders, who is a self-described socialist, progressive Elizabeth Warren, to former Vice President Joe Biden, who is often seen as a moderate. There are many entrepreneur candidates, ranging from Andrew Yang, who has promised the ‘Freedom dividend’ – a form of universal basic income, to investor Tom Steyer, a staunch anti-Trumper. Multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg is also in the mix, but he is not in the contest in Iowa.

There were many candidates of colour also -- Kamala Harris, Cory booker and Julian Castro -- but they dropped out of the race due to financing issues.

Ahead of the caucuses, opinion polls suggest that Senator Bernie Sanders is slightly ahead, with Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg, a former Mayor of a small town called South Bend in Indiana, making up the top four spots. Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar rounds off the list of top candidates.

Their stand on various issues

On healthcare: Sanders and Warren have said that they will declare healthcare as a human right, and will provide comprehensive health coverage to all Americans. Biden has promised to widen the scope of Obama's affordable healthcare act if he is elected President. Buttigieg says that his govt will ensure that there is an option for affordable health coverage.

Taxation: All candidates seem to agree that the US federal government needs to raise its spending. So, all of them are proposing to increase taxes on the super-rich and multinational companies like Amazon. Sanders and Warren believe that these new taxes will help them find their ambitious welfare schemes. Moderates like Biden and Buttigieg are looking to spend the money received from taxes on healthcare and education. Bloomberg and Steyer look to tax the big polluters to aid renewable sources of energy.

Yang wants to tax profits made from new technologies like self-driving trucks to provide for severance packages for drivers. He also plans to tax Wall Street transactions, while providing incentives to encourage investments in specific sectors.

Many candidates have also proposed a massive cut in defence spending.

Foreign policy: Most candidates disagree with President Trump on this issue, and most have similar policies. All of them want to end the 70-year-old Korean war, end the conflict in Afghanistan, and promote human rights all over the world. However, they have different solutions and time frames for each issue. Most of them are also pro-migration.

Climate change: This is one issue that all democrats are talking about. All the candidates have plans to promote renewable energy while taxing the polluters.

Campaign funds

Nationally among the Dems, Steyer has raised the most funds ($206,286,970.59), followed by Bloomberg ($200,359,618.56), Sanders ($109,094,634.91), Warren ($81,997,425.78), Buttigieg ($76,778,634.72) and Biden ($61,038,761.75) follow, according to the data published on the US Federal Election Commission's website. However, Trump ($211,307,437.13) has raised more than all the Dems.

According to the website, Steyer ($200,863,229.67) and Bloomberg ($188,385,951.94) have outspent all the other candidates, including Trump ($116,133,435.86). Sanders ($96,274,953.43), Warren ($68,282,116.72), Buttigieg ($62,259,558.79) and Biden ($52,092,947.90) follow.

How are they selected?

The procedure to select the candidates for the presidential elections is quite complicated -- there are two different ways the parties select a candidate.

One method is the caucuses, which will be followed in Iowa, wherein members of the party will come together, debate and then select a candidate. This is an exercise run by the political party, and the State is not involved. Delegates are assigned to the candidates according to the support they receive, and the delegates will support candidates at the national convention.

The other method is the primary, where State/local governments conduct elections. It has a secret ballot, and those who are registered to a party can vote and select their candidate. Again, winning candidates will be assigned delegates, who will represent them in the national conventions.

The parties will the candidate for the presidential election is formally chosen at the national conventions. The Democrats will hold their convention between July 13- 16. The Republican National Convention will be held between August 24-27.

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