At one point or another, we’ve all wondered how to become president, arguably the most difficult, yet prestigious, job there is.
Yet unlike other jobs, becoming president isn’t a straightforward path. In many cases, you have to plan for it years, often decades, in advance and never waiver from your goal of getting to the White House.
Not to mention, one slight mistake or miscalculation could quite easily ruin your chances of becoming president before you even get to run!
1. Meet The Criteria
Before you can even consider running for the presidency, you must first ensure that you fit the eligibility requirements set out in the Constitution:
- Be a natural born US citizen
- Be at least 35 years old
- Have lived in the US for at least the last 14 years
To even be considered, you’ll have to prove all three of these things, else you legally won’t be able to run.
Despite these being the written rules, voters (and by extension, political parties) tend to prefer candidates who exceed all three of these criteria by a comfortable margin – primarily to avoid the other party from trying to spin it and thus delegitimize their candidate.
For example, the rules state you need to be at least 35 years old to run for president, yet the average age of presidents when they’re inaugurated is around 55. The youngest elected president, John F. Kennedy, was 43 when he became president in 1961.
In recent years, the two main parties have begun to favor slightly candidates. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was 69, whilst her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, was 70. In 2020, Trump was 75, whilst Joe Biden was 78.
The two major parties also have an unwritten policy to only put forward candidates who’ve lived in the US for at least the last 20 years, seemingly preferring candidates who’ve never lived abroad unless for military or diplomatic postings.
2. Get Life Experience
Though it isn’t a prerequisite, it’s often a good idea to have some non-political experience to put on your résumé, as it often makes you more relatable in the eye’s of the wider electorate.
Traditionally, prospective presidents joined the military as officers to gain the leadership skills they’d later rely on as president. The status of war hero is also invaluable on the campaign trail. Think George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant or Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Whilst the military is still a good option for any prospective president, more recent presidents have come from either the legal or business professions, for many of the same reasons that presidents before them joined the military.
As president, one of the things you’ll be expected to do is decipher legal jargon on a daily basis, so the benefit of a law degree and hands-on legal experience will often help you cut down the amount of time you’ll need for this.
Others become entrepreneurs or businessmen, not just to gain great wealth but also to gain the relationships with business leaders you’ll need as president and even the connections you’ll need to get into the world of politics in the first place!
It may also be a good idea to get a further education – every president elected since 1953 has had at least a bachelor’s degree, whilst Joe Biden, Richard Nixon, Barack Obama, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton had Juris Doctor degrees and George W. Bush had an M.B.A.
3. Join a Political Party
Even though there is nothing written down that you need to be a member of a political party, it would be advised; the last independent candidate to win the White House was George Washington in 1792!
When choosing a political party, it is important to consider a few things: how their views compare to yours, the size of the party and its reputation.
Read the news and form views on various issues (eg. immigration, size/role of the government, taxation etc.) and then research political parties with similar views to you on these issues. What you should find is that one party shares your views on most of the issues.
Naturally, no political party will share your views on every single issue – it would be extremely rare if they did – so try to find the party that best fits your views as a whole. Having cross-party views may even help you get more votes later on.
You should also consider the size and scope of the party. A party active in every state and several territories with millions of members is likely to stand a better chance of getting you elected than a statewide party with a few hundred thousand members at the most.
It’s also important to consider the party’s reputation. If it has a history of fracturing between two competing factions (eg. liberals and socialists, moderates and conservatives etc.) it may harm your presidential ambitions or potentially cut them short.
At least in the US, the political landscape is dominated by the Democratic Party, who are more liberal/progressive, and the Republican Party, who are more conservative.
4. Get Political Experience
Again, whilst it’s not a prerequisite that you have prior political experience before running for the presidency, prior political experience will certainly help getting delegates to pledge for you, gaining voters and boosting cross-party ties to get legislation through Congress.
To date, only five presidents haven’t had prior political experience before entering the White House, including: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Donald Trump, which both proved a curse and a blessing during their presidencies.
Many prospective presidents start out in state governments, usually as a state senator, allowing them to become semi-famous across their state before using it as a springboard to contest a local congressional district.
From there, many future presidents get on subcommittees with the hopes of garnering media attention from making somewhat controversial statements during their public inquiries.
Again, this serves as a springboard to getting elected to the Senate, gaining political experience in the House and the trust of the people before one of the state’s two senators resign, die or decline to run for re-election.
In the Senate, they again try to make a name for themselves – either by making semi-controversial statements or by chairing subcommittees – so they can gain a core base of supporters to fuel their future presidential bid.
Others, simply use family connections to get elected directly to the House or Senate and work from there, often holding Ambassador roles and/or heading government agencies instead of state legislative positions.
5. Court Your Party
With this experience under your belt, your next job will be to court your party. Hopefully, you’ll have made powerful friends within your party who’d be willing to back you if you put your name forward.
Float it as a hypothetical in the middle of a conversation (ideally in private to avoid the word from getting out) and hear what they have to say. In particular, listen to their reasons why you might not win. And don’t take it personally.
Perhaps you’re too young in their eyes, or have a past likely to alienate a large part of the electorate, or maybe there’s just a better candidate with a better chance of winning than you do.
If all is good, and your allies don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t run, your next step will be to talk to your party to see what exactly they want for a candidate. More importantly, you need to ask if they’d be willing to let you run for the party’s nomination.
Assuming they say yes, and you’ve listened to what exactly they’re looking for in a presidential nominee, your next goal will be to formally announce your candidacy for the party’s nomination.
6. Win The Party Nomination
This will not be an easy task. In many cases, your party will also have candidates that are just as well-known and respected as you are, so you will constantly have to push yourself as the best candidate your party has.
To that end, you’ll need to hire a campaign manager, get a website designed and start soliciting donations to fund your campaign. You would also want to attend your party’s convention too.
Before hiring a campaign manager, you need to make sure you can trust them: the campaign manager can often make or break a presidential hopeful’s campaign.
Many presidential hopefuls choose to use professional campaign managers who charge a hefty fee for their skills, knowhow and connections and have a longstanding relationship (and track record) with a particular party, eg. the Republicans.
In other cases, presidential hopefuls choose to employ a close friend or family member. For example, during his unsuccessful 1988 and 2008 presidential bids, Joe Biden employed his sister, Valerie, as his campaign manager. JFK did a similar thing with his brother, Bobby.
A well-designed and easy to use website serves three main purposes for any presidential hopeful.
First, it tells potential voters that you are a modern candidate for a modern world. Second, it helps to get your message across to people who wouldn’t necessarily have thought about voting for you otherwise.
The third is that it acts as a donation driver. Whilst the majority of your money will come from organizations who want to see you become the next president, your website will also allow people to donate up to $100 to your campaign.
Assuming you do all three of these well, have policies that people like and are able to convince enough of your party’s delegates to pledge to you, you’ll win your party’s nomination.
7. Start Your Campaign
Now with the full weight of your party behind you, your job will be to gain the votes of the American public, as they are ultimately the ones who will decide whether or not you get in the White House.
This will mean you’ll have to go on a tour of the country, shake a lot of hands, kiss a few babies, visit churches, factories, veterans and be the guest of honor at dozens of events, both large and small.
You also need to make sure that the itinerary of the tour is published in advance to allow your supporters to arrive en masse to greet you. This should also allow the press to cover your tour in great detail, which essentially acts as free marketing for your campaign.
Speaking of the press, a strong relationship with them is often crucial. Invite them for one-on-one sit-downs, give them quotes for their articles (make sure they’re for the right reasons) and don’t do things to unnecessarily antagonize them.
Picking the right Vice-President nominee is also crucial. Though you’ll be the main attraction so to speak, your Vice-President candidate will help you appeal to a wider range of people.
Say you come from a wealthy background, many of your detractors will say that you can’t relate to average Americans. But what if your VP candidate came from a poor, rural background? Their point basically falls apart.
To have the best chances of winning, your campaign will also want to avoid the three main things that destroy campaigns: gaffes, scandals and lies. The public rarely forgets these things and are played up immensely in the runup to election day.
8. Win The Election & Get Inaugurated
Whilst you are running your campaign, the candidates for other parties will be running theirs too.
Assuming you are running for one of the two main parties (the Republicans and Democrats), your party will have safe states that are pretty much guaranteed to vote for you regardless, as well states that will never vote for you by virtue of them being a safe state for the other party.
Think New York for the Democrats or Texas for the Republicans.
Thanks to this, much of the campaigning will come down to a few swing states (otherwise known as purple states), with you trying to convince the undecided in those states to vote your way – just as your competition will be trying to do.
As a part of this, you’ll be asked to appear in presidential debates, where you and the other presidential candidates will debate certain issues, ranging from fiscal issues like taxation, to social issues such as crime, so the public can gain a better idea of your opinions.
Your VP candidate will similarly appear in their own debates with the other Vice-President candidates, debating many of the same issues, as well as how they will act as VP.
Debates, campaigning and voting drives will continue up until Election Day on November 3, when the nation will come out to vote for their next president.
If your efforts have been successful, and you’ve managed to win those crucial swing states, your victory will be announced by the press in the days following the election. At this point, you’ll be known as the president-elect.
You’ll then have to wait until January 6th for the Senate to confirm your victory, which is usually unanimous. Two weeks later, on January 20, you’ll arrive in Washington for your inauguration – marking the beginning of your presidency.
On this day, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will ask you to place your left hand on the Bible (or your holy book if you aren’t Christian) and to raise your right hand, where you will take the oath of office.
In a symbolic gesture, the outgoing president will place their left hand over yours to signify a transfer of power from them to you. You will then be asked to deliver a speech and escort your predecessor to the departure ceremony at the East Side of the Capitol.
After a few more ceremonial traditions (such as signing your first Executive Orders, hosting a congressional luncheon and the Inaugural Balls) you will officially begin your four year term as President of the United States of America.
9. Stay True to Your Promises
Winning the election and getting inaugurated on January 20th are only the first hurdles in what are to come. After all, you probably want to go down in the history books as a great president and get re-elected in four years time!
If you ran your campaign on completely overhauling the tax system, do it. If you ran on increasing America’s power and reputation on the global stage, implement policies that will do that. If you ran on sorting immigration out, do it.
Generally, this is the hardest part of your job.
No matter what you ran on, there will be people who oppose it for a variety of reasons, some plausible and some simply because you aren’t the candidate they voted for.
In many cases, they’ll use the media to criticize you and your policies, saying that you are trying to destroy America, potentially on behalf of some foreign power.
And that’s not even factoring in the House or Senate, who often vote on things based on party lines. This means that if your party doesn’t control both Houses of Congress, your job is even more difficult than it would be otherwise.
As such, you’ll need to use your friends in the House, Senate and Press to help push your agenda and get it enshrined into law.
Regardless of how hard you try, it’s impossible to come through on all of campaign promises, no matter how much you want to, so you should aim to make good on as many as possible.
When it come to re-election, a president who’s made good on most of their promises stands a better chance of getting re-elected than a president who’s only come through on a few of their promises.
Do you want to become president? Tell me in the comments!