Calendar of Upcoming 2020 Presidential Election Events

The first half of 2020 will shape the upcoming election at breakneck speed.

While it seems like all candidates have been campaigning non-stop for the last four years, the next few months will whittle down the Democratic primary field and the most important issues to voters will surface.

Keeping up with political discourse is difficult; planning other types of content around election noise can be even harder. To help with story timing, we’ve compiled a list of key dates that are expected to dominate news cycles.

Below is a timeline of major upcoming events related to the 2020 presidential election for the first half of the year.

February

This month is a major turning point in the election cycle with first-in-the-nation caucuses and primaries interspersed amongst three Democratic debates.

• Feb. 3 – Iowa caucuses begin.
• Feb. 7 – The 8^th Democratic primary debate will be held in Manchester, N.H., at St. Anselm College and be co-hosted by ABC, WMUR, and Apple News.
• Feb. 11 – New Hampshire primary.
• Feb. 19 – The 9^th Democratic primary debate will be held in Las Vegas and co-hosted by NBC News, MSNBC, and The Nevada Independent.
• Feb. 22 – Nevada caucuses.
• Feb. 25 – The 10^th Democratic primary debate will be held in Charleston, S.C., at The Gaillard Center and co-hosted by CBS News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.
• Feb. 29 – South Carolina primary.

March

Following a heavy-hitting month of debates, a deluge of delegates is up for grabs in March.

• March 3 – “Super Tuesday,” known as such because the largest number of states’ primary debates and caucuses take place. California and Texas are ones to watch, as they have the largest and second-largest amounts of delegates in the country, respectively.
• March 10 – Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and Washington primaries.
• March 15 – The 11^th Democratic primary debate will be held in Phoenix, Ariz., and will be co-hosted by CNN and Univision (venue is TBD).
• March 17 – General election swing states (Arizona, Florida, Ohio) and Illinois primaries.

April

If a clear candidate has not yet emerged by this point, April’s primaries will offer the final opportunity to significantly sway the delegate count.

• TBD – 12^th Democratic primary debate.
• April 4 – Alaska, Hawaii, and Louisiana primaries.
• April 7 – Wisconsin primary.
• April 28 – Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island primaries.

May

With only a handful of primaries and caucuses throughout the month, May leads the voting wind-down.

• May 2 – Kansas primary.
• May 5 – Indiana primaries.
• May 12 – Nebraska and West Virginia primaries
• May 19 – Kentucky and Oregon primaries.

June

This month marks the end of Democratic primary season, with both national conventions coming up later in the summer.

• June 2 – Washington, D.C., Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota vote.
• June 7 – Puerto Rico primary.

Some dates are tentative or subject to change. Check out an interactive election calendar like this one to stay on top of the latest updates.

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Erienne Muldoon is a senior customer content specialist for Virtual Press Office, PR Newswire’s trade show marketing solutions division. When she’s not advising clients on storytelling best practices, you can find her tweeting about Cleveland, PR, and video games @ECMuldoon.