It seems like a presidential election takes forever these days, because the candidates announce their intentions earlier and earlier. But the real race happens between the major party conventions and the general election. If the leading candidate from the primaries were to die before the party’s convention, the party would select another candidate. And that would also happen if a candidate died after the convention. But what if a candidate died after the general election? That actually happened once, when Democrat Horace Greeley died after the election in 1872, but before the electoral college cast their votes. In that case, it didn’t matter because Greeley had lost the election to Ulysses Grant. But what if it had been Grant who died? The process can get complicated. Read about what would happen in various scenarios at How Stuff Works.