Candidates and endorsements
Maher considers himself to be at odds with both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Maher announced his support for U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). Although Maher welcomed Obama's electoral victory, he soon became critical of the new president for not acting more boldly on health care reform and other liberal issues. On February 23, 2012, after his "Crazy Stupid Politics" special streamed on Yahoo! Screen, Maher announced that he was contributing $1 million to Priorities USA, the Obama SuperPAC. Maher has voted for Bob Dole and Ralph Nader.
In the lead-up to the 2014 midterm elections, Maher conducted a "Flip a District" contest on his HBO show. His audience was asked to select one "terrible, entrenched" member of Congress in a close election race—"the loserest loser of all"—to remove from office. Maher aimed to help oust that representative by shining a "national spotlight" on the politician during segments of his show and stand-up comedy appearances in that member's district during the Fall election. Maher ultimately selected Republican Representative John Kline from Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, but he failed to prevent him from winning against his Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party opponent Mike Obermueller.
In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Maher initially endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders on February 5, 2016. Maher later announced his support for Hillary Clinton after Clinton won the nomination from the Democratic Party primary elections in June 2016. In October 2016, Maher criticized WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing leaks from the DNC's emails, saying: "I really feel like he's lost his way a little, and he hates Hillary." On March 31, 2017, following her defeat, Maher responded on air to suggestions Clinton was ready to end her low profile and speak out: "Hillary, stay in the woods. Okay. You had your shot. You fucked it up. You're Bill Buckner. We had the World Series, and you let the grounder go through your legs. Let someone else have the chance." In August 2019, Maher said an economic recession would be "worth it" if Donald Trump did not get re-elected in 2020. He said: "We have survived many recessions. We can't survive another Donald Trump term."
Over the course of 20 different editions of Real Time with Bill Maher broadcast between April 13, 2018, and August 7, 2020, and in several press interviews, Maher predicted that Trump would refuse to concede any loss in the 2020 United States presidential election, dedicating a 'New Rules' end segment to the subject on January 25, 2020. Maher highlighted Trump's own public references to Maher's assertions that Trump was "not going to leave", and quoted Trump's March 14, 2019, assertion, "I have the support of the police, the military, the bikers [for Trump]" and "the tough people", citing this as evidence that Trump would seek to remain in office by force. Maher predicted there would be violence by armed Trump supporters attempting to keep Trump in power and criticized Democratic Party politicians for not taking the threat seriously:"So my question to all Democratic candidates is: what's the plan? If you win, and the next day he claims he's voiding the election because of irregularities he's hearing about, what do you do? What do you do when the crowd that was in Virginia this week, 22,000 strong, marches on Washington? This is a scary moment. And when I've asked Democrats, 'What do we do if he doesn't go?', their answer is always some variation of 'We have to win big!'... First of all, NO! No, we don't have to win by a landslide! Jesus, fucking Democrats! I am so sick of Democrats volunteering to play by two different sets of rules. That's the new paradigm? Republicans can win by one vote, but we're not legitimate unless it's a landslide? Fuck. And two, do you really think it would matter if it was? That they would suddenly get rational about math and facts? They believe Hillary ran a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor!"Maher later said in an August 15, 2020, interview with Vanity Fair that "we've baked it into the cake that he's not going to leave." In the September 25, 2020, edition of Real Time, Maher criticized the framing of a New York Times story by Michael Crowley headlined "Trump Won't Commit to Peaceful Transfer of Power", which ran on page 15 of the print edition of the paper. Maher asserted, "I got no help from the New York Times, Washington Post, [or] CNN", adding that the media "should have amplified" the severity of Trump's threats that he would refuse to concede or commit to a peaceful transition of power.
In January 2022, Maher declined to run in the 2024 United States presidential election following speculation by Dana Perino that he might be called on to do so. In July 2024, he called on Joe Biden to decline the Democratic party's nomination in order to have an open convention at the Democratic Convention; Maher expressed his support for Gavin Newsom to replace Biden as the party's nominee.
In February 2025, Maher endorsed Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman for the 2028 Democratic Party presidential primaries and praised his strong support of the Israeli government and stance against "woke".
In July 2026, Maher expressed openness to voting for JD Vance if he was the 2028 Republican nominee, pointing to the rise in support of the Democratic Socialists of America on the left. The same month, he described the DSA as “communists” and suggested he would vote for Sarah Palin instead, despite also referring to her as a “bimbo”.
