TV Show Elections To Make You Feel Better (Or Worse) About Politics

Every fall, Americans are hit with political ads and social media posts asking for donations to a public servant’s upcoming campaign. Election season bogs down the news cycle like a rain cloud, each candidate sounding like a broken record with the same old song coming from the speakers. If the fate of women’s rights, LGBTQ+ acceptance, and fair wages for labor weren’t perpetually at risk, elections might even be entertaining instead of stressful!

That’s where our favorite TV shows come in! Sitcoms, dramas, and even children’s shows have never shied away from writing entire episodes or even series-long arcs related to politics. These are the best TV show elections of all time!

Singer/Neuman 2024 (The Boys)

The Boys incorporates political satire into the bloody action in almost every episode. Creator Eric Kripke and his writers never shy away from poking fun at politicians, viewpoints, and the thirst for power. The fourth season even got review-bombed by certain subsects of fans after they felt the series leaned too much into the cesspool of right-wing versus left-wing argumentation. 

The series simply wouldn’t exist without political commentary, though. The presidential campaign run by Bob Singer (Jim Beaver) and Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) throughout the last couple of seasons was unlike any fictional election put on TV. Using promotional materials such as advertisements and an actual campaign website helped with viewer immersion and it blurred the lines between fiction and reality. 

Tommy Carcetti Climbs The Political Ladder (The Wire)

The Wire’s reputation almost supersedes its reality sometimes. Critics rightfully speak of the HBO police drama as if it were art instead of television, but that’s only because the series does such a splendid job of depicting the city of Baltimore in all of its corrupt glory. No part of Maryland’s biggest city is left unturned in the five seasons of action, not the least of which is the dirty politicians behind the scenes. 

Tommy Carcetti (played with electric precision by the criminally underrated Aidan Gillen) starts the series as an up-and-coming local politician with tangible desires to change the world. His journey from Chairman of the Public Safety Committee to Governor of Maryland includes plenty of backstabbing, hypocrisy, and election night excitement (such as when he’s elected Mayor of Baltimore in season 4). Much like all the rest of the stuck characters in creator David Simon’s universe, Carcetti proves that even the most powerful people are just cogs in the societal muck. 

Jeryd Mencken v. Daniel Jiménez (Succession)

Succession’s sharp satire of the American elite through the conduit of the Roy family told an intricate story of how the rich pull the strings to get what they want. Nepotism rules in the HBO hit, where the children of patriarch mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox) even get to bribe and manipulate presidential elections for their own benefit. 

The election between Republican candidate Jeryd Mencken and Democratic candidate Daniel Jiménez peaked during the third-to-last episode of the show. Using more than a few references to FOX News, CNN, and the real-life 2020 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Succession showed how politics ruin Americans’ lives all as spoiled brats backstab each other behind the scenes. And always remember, Connor Roy has been interested in politics from a very young age!

Selina Meyer v. Bill O’Brien (Veep)

Veep wasn’t just Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s avenue to a trillion Emmy wins (although that’s certainly part of the satire’s mystique). The HBO comedy had an uncanny ability to navigate the fictional and non-fictional worlds of politics with Louis-Dreyfus’s character, Selina Meyer, resembling more than a few familiar faces while also carving out her own place on the political Mt. Rushmore. 

Selina starts the show as VP but has taken the reins of the White House by season 4. She has to simultaneously run a campaign for election against opponent Bill O’Brien (Brad Leland) while navigating her first presidency. The finale, in which Meyer and O’Brien are deadlocked in the electoral college typifies the political division of the country and the wicked humor in the darkness of America’s power struggle. 

Mr. Burns Runs for Governor (The Simpsons)

Once upon a time, The Simpsons was the show to go to if you wanted a pointed analysis of America at large. Unlike its successors that focus more on critiquing pop culture, Homer’s family addressed political issues while eliciting a laugh every 10 seconds. 

“Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish” encapsulates the heated environmentalism debates of the 1990s that are unfortunately still such a contemporary climate emergency. Mr. Burns turns to a public office campaign in an attempt to keep his industrial career alive when the Springfield Power Plant is revealed to be toxic. His shameless motivations work only in his self-interest, and it’d be sad if it weren’t so funny!

City Council Election (Parks and Recreation)

If any show was going to feature an election, it would be Parks and Recreation. The series, which was originally known as a spiritual successor to The Office, eventually transcended those associations and became synonymous with quirky ensemble comedies and subtle political jabs.

Amy Poehler’s portrayal of Leslie Knope was always endearing, but she ups her game in the fourth season when Leslie wants to run for the City Council. In a finale that includes voting recounts and acceptance speeches, the show is able to stick to its typical optimistic point-of-view while also skewering the zaniness of elections. 

Princess Toadstool v. Koopa (The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3)

From The Super Mario Bros. Movie to the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Nintendo’s mascot is no stranger to movies and TV series. The vibrant, family-friendly Mushroom Kingdom universe is easily translatable to other mediums, but what about the storylines that go with the world-building? Cartoons need simple, easy-to-understand plots for kids and parents alike. 

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 features an election episode in which Princess Toadstool and King Koopa face off in a democratic duel for political power amongst the kingdom’s citizens. The plot revolves around Bowser’s unlikability amongst his potential voters, but knowing how today’s Americans cast their ballots, it wouldn’t be shocking if the fire-breathing antagonist won public office. 

Live New Hampshire Primary Election (The Conners)

Roseanne Barr always infused her political opinions into her self-titled sitcom and the rest of her stand-up act. As her humor has become more uncouth and unhinged in latter years, the rest of the cast and crew of the Roseanne reboot on ABC had to make the series relatable to wider American audiences.

After Barr’s defection from the program and a rebrand into The Conners, the series still maintained some political affiliations with a high-wire, live-action episode “Live from Lanford.” The half-hour was shot concurrently with the New Hampshire Democratic primary in 2020 and featured strong ad-lib and reactionary acting from the cast and plenty of good contemporary political humor from the writers behind the scenes. 

Ned Runs for President (Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide)

Let’s get a little more light-hearted now, shall we? Remember those school elections for student body president when you were in middle school? They felt like the biggest events on the calendar. Instead of abortion and closing the borders, the biggest topics at an ASB debate are school lunch runtimes and spirit assembly activities. 

In typical Nickelodeon fashion, Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide perfectly depicted the absurdity of 13-year-olds running a political campaign when Ned (Devon Werkheiser) is forced to run for class president in season one’s “Talent Shows & Elections.” Ned’s everyman demeanor definitely could be of good use in Washington D.C. these days!