So you want to run for president.
What an exciting time! You’re prepared to spend a long time campaigning (although maybe not as long as , who has been running since 2008), move into the White House and maybe even . That shouldn’t be too hard at all.
The best way to start is by filling out the necessary paperwork on a federal level. There are only two forms you have to fill out to become what a Federal Election Commission official called “a person who filled out the forms to run for president.” (You aren’t officially considered a candidate until you raise a total of $5,000, a bar that only 53 people have cleared this election cycle.)
Those forms are the aptly named FEC Form 1 and FEC Form 2. is a statement of organization that establishes all the crucial elements for the financial side of your campaign. It names the bank your campaign will be using, who is in charge of your campaign finances and all committees associated with you as a candidate (who will definitely raise more than $5,000).is the document that puts your name in the race. All it requires is your name, address and party, and it also requests the name of the principal campaign committee you’ll be collecting money through. It has to be the same committee established when filling out Form 1; the only other rule is your name must be part of the name of your committee. You can fill out both forms online or turn in paper copies by mail or by hand.
Filling out the forms is one of the easiest parts of the campaign. Of course, because those forms are so easy to fill out, you’re going to have some competition — almost 2,000 other people are running, according to FEC data.
Candidates for president
Each dot below represents someone who is running for president — or at least has filled out the bare minimum paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to do so.
Luckily, most of those 2,000 people don’t actually want to be president. Take Russell Rohrbacker from Fort Collins, for instance.
Rohrbacker is 65 years old, semi-retired and a Democrat. He says he’s not campaigning as aggressively after his wife, Anna, had a few surgeries. Rohrbacker is helping her recover, but he says even that isn’t enough to get her to “waste her vote” on him.
He isn’t on the ballot in Colorado — or anywhere else — and he cannot be since the Democrats at the end of July. If he wanted to, he could have updated , gotten the signatures of 5,000 registered Colorado voters and then gotten his candidacy cleared through the Colorado Secretary of State to potentially end up on the ballot under a different party, but those deadlines passed in July.
“I was going to go ahead and go through with that, but then I saw my lawn needed to be mowed, and I decided that was more important,” Rohrbacker said. He anticipates his only vote will be a write-in (by himself), but he wouldn’t say no to the health benefits if he won the presidency.
Itap a bit easier to get on the ballot if you’re a major party nominee — in many states, winning the nomination will get your name in front of voters. Many states don’t consider parties such as Libertarian or the Green Party to be major parties, though, so you may be better off running as an independent candidate (not to be confused with the ).
How to run for president in every state
Click a state below to find out how to get on their presidential ballot.
Before you get too far in the process, you should probably make sure you’re constitutionally eligible to be president. The Constitution stipulates presidents must be 35 years old, a resident of the United States for at least 14 years and a “natural-born” U.S. citizen. (The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution establishes you cannot serve more than two four-year terms, so if you’ve already served a term as president, consider sitting a few elections out.)
If you don’t meet those requirements, you can still run — you just can’t actually serve as president if you win. Luckily for those who don’t meet all the standards, the FEC doesn’t verify the forms in the same way states do. In fact, they’re not allowed to.
“The agency has no authority and makes no judgment on an individual’s qualifications or eligibility to run for office or obtain ballot access,” a FEC official said in an e-mail. Instead, the commission uses its Reports Analysis Division to make sure potential candidates complete the forms correctly.
The division sends letters to those who made a mistake on their paperwork (such as having a committee that doesn’t include a candidate’s name), but it doesn’t keep tabs on how many letters it sends out or how often candidates correct the problems. That information instead lives on a person’s individual filing page.
Because Form 2s are not verified, people like Emperor Palpatine (a member of the Concerned Citizens Party of Connecticut with an address in ), Mickey Mouse (a write-in with a ) and several members of the Nuts family (Independents from , and ) end up officially running for the presidency.
Thatap also how candidates like 18-year-old Jaylem Durousseau from Aurora are able to run. He’ll be eligible to vote for the first time in November. It will be 2036 before he’s actually old enough to be president.
Durousseau realizes he hasn’t actually met the necessary qualifications, but he decided to take a shot anyway. The 2016 graduate of Regis Jesuit High School filled out the paperwork online during a free period at school and eventually put a “Jaylem Durousseau For President” bumper sticker on his car.
“Itap surprisingly easy to run for president,” Durousseau said. “It took like maybe 20 minutes (to fill out the forms), and it would have been shorter, but my iPad crashed.”
After you have filled out your forms and gotten your name on the ballot, a good next step is raising money. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has raised the most money (her total contributions equal $315.4 million ), followed by Bernie Sanders (with total contributions equaling $228 million), Donald Trump ($125.2 million, $52 million of which he donated to himself) and Ted Cruz (whose total contributions are $89.4 million), but that does not mean you should give up.
There is another FEC form to fill out when you raise money (), and you’ll need to keep track of your receipts and disbursements. Steven Kerbel, a Colorado Springs man who ended his campaign in March, raised money over the course of his campaign and knows donations are a sign people want to support your efforts.
During his year-long bid for the presidency, Kerbel, a Libertarian who now works for Gary Johnson’s campaign, says he knew it was a “crazy longshot” he’d win the election. Despite that, he says people were willing to donate to his cause because they were able to connect with his message.
“A lot of times, I didn’t know that someone had donated to me because they would do it through my website, or I’d get donations through my campaign staff,” Kerbel said. “People donated because they liked what I said, and I was honest. You have to be honest with people — thatap how you do it as a candidate.”
After going through these steps, the final (and perhaps most crucial) hurdle is actually getting people to vote for you. Getting yourself in the debates may be helpful — if you can poll at 15 percent or higher, you’re in. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are currently the only ones who have met that threshold. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is polling at , and Green Party candidate Jill Stein sits around 3.4 percent.
Arguably one of the best ways to gain the support of your fellow Americans is to build a solid platform people want to get behind. Durousseau built his platform during what he called a “six-person town hall,” and it focuses on education reform and lowering taxes. Rohrbacker writes in a Word document about his plans to work with Russia and to raise taxes on those making over $150,000 “by a modest $50 a year.” You have to find what works for you — what works for may not work for .
You’re not quite finished, though. Thanks to America’s Electoral College, you can’t just get the most votes. You also must win 270 electoral votes. If you can pull that off, the White House is yours for the next four years — assuming you don’t get impeached or meet a terrible end because you got pneumonia soon after . The advantage here once again goes to candidates of major parties, but it might be possible even for third-party candidates if you got your name on the ballot in all 50 states.
In 48 out of the 50 states, electoral votes are winner take all (Nebraska and Maine are exceptions and use the , which has the potential to split votes proportionally). Many states are to be hotly contested, which is great if you’re a Democrat or Republican but makes it harder if you’re running with a third party.
If you’re going independent, focus on winning states with just enough electoral votes to take away a majority from either candidate. If no one hits 270 votes, the House of Representatives will choose the president from the three candidates who received the most votes, which means it may be a good time to start making some friends up on Capitol Hill — although be careful how .
Once you’ve either won 270 electoral votes or the favor of the House, you just have to wait it out until your inauguration. In the meantime, and prepare your .
Congratulations, Mister or Madam President. You’ve made it.
