US elections 2024: Who is running for president?
With President Joe Biden widely expected to announce his re-election bid this week, the 2024 US presidential race is getting more and more exciting.
His predecessor, former President Donald Trump, formally launched his campaign in November, paving the way for a possible rematch of the 2020 election that Biden won against his Republican rival.
With the incumbent president poised to become the Democratic nominee and Trump the early GOP front-runner, the U.S.’s two major political parties will begin a process next year to formally choose a 2024 candidate to run for the White House .
On the Democratic side, only two long-running candidates have entered the race to challenge Biden, while a number of Republicans have thrown their hats in to compete against Trump for the GOP nomination, with more expected.
Here, Al Jazeera looks at the list of confirmed and anticipated US presidential candidates, their platforms, and their odds.
democratic Party
Joe Biden
Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election, has consistently stated his intention to run again in 2024 and is considered the presumptive nominee — though he has yet to formally announce his re-election bid.
An Associated Press-NORC poll released last week found that about half of Democratic voters wanted Biden to run again, and about 80 percent said they would support him against a Republican candidate.
Despite a thin Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate and a House of Representatives that transitioned to Republican control under his watch, Biden has enjoyed a fairly productive presidency. Several of his legislative priorities, including increased spending to combat climate change and strengthen U.S. infrastructure, were passed by Congress early in his first term.
However, Biden is hampered by concerns about his age: He would be 82 years old at the start of his second term if he wins the 2024 election. Some critics have questioned whether he has the stamina to hold the top spot for another four years.
Marianne Williamson
Williamson, a former self-help author, unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020.
A Morning Consult poll in early March found Williamson trailing Biden among Democratic voters by a significant deficit of about 73 percentage points.
Williamson has embraced themes of economic and racial justice and calls for the preservation of Social Security, more robust support for labor unions and reparations for Black Americans.
“The system has been manipulated for the past 50 years,” Williamson said on her website.
“From tax cuts for the wealthy to endless corporate subsidies to the privatization of almost everything; from union breaking to obsessive deregulation to cutting government spending – economic opportunity had been stripped away from the average worker in America.
Robert F Kennedy Jr
Kennedy, an anti-vaccination activist and cousin of former US President John F Kennedy, formally launched his candidacy in April.
According to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll that same month, he had the support of about 14 percent of Democratic primary voters.
A member of one of the most famous families in American politics, Kennedy — the son of Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination — has become a prominent voice in the anti-vaccination movement.
He published a book in 2021 accusing former White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci of “a historic coup against Western democracy.”
Kennedy has pledged to stand down against the “corrupt state-corporate merger” if elected.
Republican Party
Donald Trump
Trump, who served a term as US president after defeating Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, formally launched his campaign in November.
After his loss to Biden in 2020, Trump attempted to overturn the election results by falsely claiming that the vote against him had been “rigged.”
Critics say his phony election-rigging campaign led a mob of Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent Congress from ratifying Biden’s election victory. Trump was later impeached by the US House of Representatives for “inciting” the riot.
Trump, a former businessman and television personality, also continues to face a long list of legal troubles and investigations, and in early April became the first former president to face criminal charges.
Trump — adept at venting anger against the American political establishment — has an edge over his rivals for the Republican nomination, however, and continues to wield broad influence over the party’s voters.
He has taken a populist tone on topics such as free trade and foreign policy, where he has pursued an “America First” strategy, and has delved into far-right rhetoric targeting immigrants and Muslims.
During his time as president, however, Trump mostly ruled like a traditional Republican, and his signature legislative achievement was a series of tax breaks that largely benefited the wealthy.
Ron DeSantis
Florida governor DeSantis has not yet formally announced his candidacy, but is widely regarded as Trump’s biggest challenger for the 2024 nomination.
He is gaining prominence in conservative circles as he champions right-wing causes in Florida on issues such as abortion, education and COVID-19 containment.
In March, DeSantis described the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” not of top national security importance to the United States, raising questions about what a possible presidential victory would mean for Washington’s support of Kiev amid the Russian invasion.
Trump had a huge lead over DeSantis among Republican and independent voters nationally from 58 percent to 21 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in early April.
Mike Pence
Pence, who was Trump’s vice president, has said he is considering a presidential run in 2024, telling ABC News last year that he is “prayerfully considering” the issue.
Pence, who has made his Christian faith central to his political career, was a staunch defender of the former president but fell out with Trump after he refused to use his ceremonial role as Congressional Electoral College Overseer to oversee the election. of 2020 to be cancelled.
Before becoming vice president, Pence was Indiana’s governor. He also served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
He is one of the most outspoken supporters of U.S. aid to Ukraine among Republican presidential hopefuls.
Pence is also a strong supporter of the fight against abortion rights. He said in April that he would remove the abortion pill mifepristone from the market to “protect the unborn”.
Nikki Haley
Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, announced in February that she would seek the Republican nomination.
A poll of Morning consultation released in mid-April showed its poll at about four percent.
While Haley is restrained in her criticism of Trump, she stated in her announcement that it was “time for a new generation” of Republican leaders.
The daughter of Indian immigrants, she served as governor of the state of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017.
As Washington’s envoy to the UN during the Trump administration, she advocated a confrontational stance on Iran and was a strong supporter of US allies in the region, particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Tim Scot
Scott, a Republican senator, has not announced he will pursue the party’s nomination, but said he was forming an “exploratory committee” in April.
Scott is the only black Republican in the US Senate and recently told the Associated Press that Republicans are “starving for hope.”
He has previously positioned himself as a conservative willing to challenge liberal ideas about racism in the US.
“Hear me clearly,” he said in a 2021 speech. “America is not a racist country.”
Vivek Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy is an entrepreneur and author who has built a reputation as a crusader against “wokeism,” a loose term generally referring to a commitment to social justice but used by conservatives to paint a picture of runaway political correctness.
The April Morning Consult poll showed that Ramaswamy had a poll of about three percent in the Republican primaries.
Ramaswamy was born in Ohio State and graduated from Yale Law School before joining a hedge fund and starting a pharmaceutical company.
His campaign website states that he has been called the “CEO of anti-woke”.
Asa Hutchinson
Hutchinson is a former Republican governor of the state of Arkansas, where he served from 2015 to 2023.
His profile on the National Governors Association website states that he previously served three terms as a U.S. Congressman and Undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security during the tenure of former President George W. Bush.
The Morning Consult poll shows that he has zero percent of the vote.
Larry elder
Elder is a conservative radio talk show host who was the most serious candidate in a bid to replace Democratic Governor of California Gavin Newsom in a 2021 recall.
Newsom easily defeated that recall attempt, which failed by a margin of about 62 to 38 percent.
The Black radio host has denied that there is such a thing as systemic racism in the US.
When he announced his candidacy in April, he said the country was in decline but could enter “a new golden age”.
He is not yet appearing in the primary, but is considered a contender.
