What are the requirements to be US president according to the Constitution?
Constitutional rules prevented Arnold Schwarzenegger from trying for the White House and the Democrats from fielding Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2020.
US President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden will face the electorate on 3 November with the prize of the White House at stake in what has been to date a particularly bitter contest. In televised debates and on the campaign podiums Trump and Biden have fought a no-holds-barred contest for the Oval Office with insults and allegations the common currency of the race for the presidency so far. With only two days remaining until voters go to the polls, the veteran campaigners have been on a final push in battleground states in an attempt to drum up the key electoral votes needed to secure a four-year term as president.
Whoever comes out on top on election day, with national polls currently giving Biden a healthy lead over the incumbent Trump but the panorama far less clear-cut in most of the key states, one thing the winner can be assured of is his eligibility to hold the post of President of the United States.
Article II of the US Constitution lays out the legal requirements to run for the White House and they are fairly straightforward, as the Library of Congress summarizes: a presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen of the United States, have been a resident for 14 years, and be 35 years of age or older.
AOC 2024?
Presenting our December cover star: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez! Two elections in, the congresswoman is still fighting the fight—and she’s as sure as she’s ever been.
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) October 28, 2020
Read the @AOC cover story now. Photograph by Tyler Mitchell. https://t.co/xAbI0YAekC pic.twitter.com/lEeKmw5mGh
These rules prevented Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born in Thal, Austria and served as Republican Governor of California between 2003 and 2011 from staging a tilt at the big chair and is also the reason the Democrats were unable to nominate 31-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a candidate to challenge Trump in the 2020 elections.
Washington and Woodhull in the history books
10 May 1872. Victoria Woodhull, leader of the woman’s suffrage movement, became the first female candidate for US President but the legality of her run has been questioned as she was younger than the constitutionally mandated age of 35, an issue never raised at the time. pic.twitter.com/hlyx6reO6k
— Prof Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) May 10, 2020
All of this proved no barrier to George Washington. The first President of the United States, who served from 1789 to 1797, was born in Virginia 57 years before assuming office unopposed.
Gender has perhaps surprisingly not been an historical obstacle to a pop at the presidency ether. In a time when universal suffrage was a distant dream, Victoria Woodhull made history when she became the first woman to run for the office in 1872 against Union Civil War General and incumbent Ulysses S. Grant.
Trump hints at third term bid
WATCH: Lincoln Project warns of third Trump term in new ad: "Stop him, or it will never stop" https://t.co/VBBlGs2Lfl pic.twitter.com/fwjq2bpFSJ
— The Hill (@thehill) October 28, 2020
There are only three reasons for being denied the right of holding the office of president: impeachment, rebellion and already having served two terms in the White House - although Trump has intimated he has his eye on challenging that bit of small print should he prevail against Biden on 3 November.