The presidency from a career

A career that reaches the presidency is handed over to the presidency game. From the inauguration onward, the term is played on the presidential dashboard using the presidency game's own turns, checks and endings. The term's elections are counted by Career Mode, which also continues to supply the record of what came before and the wider political world outside the White House.

Reaching the White House

There are two ways in. The party's nominee can win the November election after the general-election campaign described at Campaign season, with the result counted state by state as described at Races and primaries, and take office the following January. Alternatively, a career can start already in office, using the President tile on the start screen (see Career starts), which offers a choice of past inauguration years; starting this way turns the previous President into a former President within the game's history from that point on. Either way, a member of a legislature who becomes President resigns their seat, and a sitting governor resigns the mansion in favour of the Lieutenant Governor, with the terms already served counted against that governor's own term limit.

The transition

The inauguration resets the term: the calendar restarts at the beginning of a new term, and the record of the player's approval, statistics and campaigns from before the presidency is cleared. The economy and diplomacy start from the historical baseline for that moment, adjusted for whatever an earlier presidency in the same career may have left behind. Congress, the courts and the cabinet are set up fresh for the year the player takes office, using the election just fought where one applies, or the historical record otherwise. The settings chosen when the career was first created carry over as the presidency's own settings.

Playing the term

From this point on, every screen treats the player exactly as the presidency game's own player, with the same monthly turns, cabinet, bills and endings described under The Presidency. The wider career world keeps running underneath: the home state's legislature, its ongoing races and its everyday political news all continue while the player is in the White House. Renomination for a second term works the same way it does for a governor, through a challenge inside the party's own primary if the President's standing has slipped. Certain scripted historical moments, such as the September 2001 attacks, are tied to the exact presidency they belong to in the real record; a career that reaches office at the matching moment is presented with the event directly, rather than only reading about it in the news.

The President's standing and elections

Every voter in every state knows who the President is. Each month, the voters' reactions to the President's decisions change how every group of voters in every state sees the President. This standing decides the elections of the term. In the midterm election, every House seat and every Senate seat that is up is counted according to how its voters see the President, and the President's party also loses some ground because the election is a midterm. If the President runs for a second term, the general election is counted state by state from the same standing, and a President whom the public views well receives some extra support in every state. See Races and primaries for how these counts work, and Campaign season for the re-election campaign.

Papers and leaving

While the player is President, the President's own official statements about the month serve as that month's national newspaper headlines, in place of both the game's generated national papers and the era's real historical headlines, which resume once the presidency ends. However the presidency ends, a successor takes the office, the term is added to the player's record, and the career returns to the wider world as a former President, with a lasting boost to how well known the player remains.