1. Meet The Criteria
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,
