The 2020 election is right around the corner, and there’s been a lot of speculation as to who may challenge President Donald Trump if he decides to run for a second term in the Oval Office. Some names being thrown around include former Vice President Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Beto O’Rourke, but as it turns out, the actual list of people that are throwing their hat into the ring includes hundreds of names.
According to Time , nearly 430 individuals have filed a form with the Federal Election Commission stating their 2020 presidential candidacy, and with more than 600 days before election day, hundreds more are expected to come in.
Individuals must declare their campaign to the FEC when they raise or spend more than $5,000 on contributions and expenditures, and according to the agency’s record, the number of people that have done so has seen a major increase over the last two decades. In 2000, there were 418 individuals that declared their campaigns, a minuscule number compared to the 1,777 that did so for 2016. Over the span of the last five presidential elections, there has been a whopping 325 percent increase in individuals that have gone through the mandatory process.
One reason experts attribute such a high volume of contenders is the ease of completing the process, which can now be done online. Columbia University economics and finance professor Eli Noam explained that this method is much easier and faster than having to hand write the forms and send them out in the mail.
“You can just do this at 2 a.m. in the morning in your basement,” Noam said of the new system.
More than 430 people are already running against Trump in the 2020 election https://t.co/WeNrkdJ700
— TIME (@TIME) December 19, 2018
Noam also explained that Donald Trump’s own success has been a major inspiration to individuals as well, seeing as he was an “unconventional” candidate in the 2016 election that came from a background of business and entertainment rather than the government.
Non-political figures’ use of “nontraditional” communication methods such as social media have proved helpful as well, allowing them to garner considerable support without having to recruit the GOP or Democratic party for a successful candidacy.
“It enables people to bypass this filter of traditional politics which included accumulating experience, rising in the ranks and being filtered out by your peers,” Noam explained.
And while it’s highly unlikely that all 430 contenders have entered the race with the expectations of actually winning, Noam noted that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“People get engaged and there’s greater openness,” he said. “What’s wrong with that?”
