Donald Trump is the overwhelming polling leader for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, even as he faces four criminal indictments. But several GOP rivals are holding out hope for an upset through strong showings in the first states set to vote.
On the Democratic side, President Biden is seeking reelection and heavily favored to win, despite two lesser-known challengers. Independent or third-party candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., are longshots but could sway a close general election matchup.
The Iowa caucuses kicked off the presidential nominating process on Jan. 15.
How early do candidates for president announce?
Sources: Smart Politics and Post reporting
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Donald Trump
Republicans
Announced ✓
Former president of the United States
Republicans have rallied to the former president’s side as he faces growing legal peril – accused in court of falsifying business records, mishandling classified documents and unsuccessfully attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Some trials are scheduled to play out as GOP voters are still selecting their nominee -- though the proceedings could be delayed. Trump has used the criminal investigations to his political benefit in the primary, vowing “retribution” for his enemies and resurging from a moment of vulnerability after the 2022 midterms.
Dropped out
North Dakota governor
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum ended a long-shot presidential run. The wealthy tech entrepreneur turned governor was first elected to his job in 2016, when he won a three-way race with nearly 77 percent of the vote.
Dropped out
Former New Jersey governor
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Christie positioned himself as a bare-knuckled brawler best-equipped to make the case against Trump, his onetime ally. But he faced growing pressure to get out of the race to avoid splitting the anti-Trump vote in New Hampshire, the early-nominating state where Christie was staking his candidacy.
Dropped out
Florida governor
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis began the year with high expectations after a landslide reelection, widely viewed as the most formidable primary challenger to his former ally Trump. But he’s spent most of the year in a downward slide, struggling to connect with voters and dogged by drama within his sprawling operation.
Larry Elder
Dropped out
Conservative radio host
Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host who unsuccessfully sought to unseat Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in California’s 2021 recall election, ended his presidential campaign in October and endorsed Trump. During his bid for governor, Elder opposed the minimum wage, called to let employers ask female applicants whether they plan to get pregnant, rejected the coronavirus vaccine mandate for state workers and endorsed Trump’s false assertion that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent.
Dropped out
Former ambassador to the United Nations
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who later served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, seized new attention this fall with her debate performances, and many Republicans now view her as the most viable alternative to Trump. She’s surged toward Trump in New Hampshire, where she’s running on a traditional Republican platform but has also enticed moderates and independents as she calls for a new, younger generation of leaders. But to many in the GOP she embodies an older incarnation of the party that Trump shattered.
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Dropped out
Former Texas congressman
Former Texas congressman Will Hurd ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in October and endorsed Haley. He launched his campaign declaring that if Republicans nominate “a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump... we all know Joe Biden will win again.” The ex-CIA officer was known in Congress for his willingness to work with Democrats and is now making a longshot pitch for his more moderate brand of what he calls “common-sense leadership."
Dropped out
Former Arkansas governor
Asa Hutchinson, who spent eight years as governor of Arkansas, suspended his presidential campaign. Hutchinson struggled to gain traction with voters after months of pitching himself as a traditional conservative long willing to criticize Trump. Hutchinson stayed in the race despite routinely polling below 1 percent and failing to qualify for most of the Republican debates.
Dropped out
Former vice president of the United States
Mike Pence ended his campaign in October after struggling to gain traction among Republican voters – many of whom faulted him for defying Trump’s pressure to reject the results of the 2020 election. Pence served as vice president under Trump and embraced his agenda but broke with him on Jan. 6, 2021, refusing to interfere with the certification of Biden’s electoral win. He grew more critical of Trump during his presidential bid, suggesting his former running mate is unfit for office. But he still indicated he would back Trump if he wins the GOP nomination.
Dropped out
Entrepreneur and author
Vivek Ramaswamy, a wealthy entrepreneur and author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Ramaswamy jumped into the presidential race as a little-known, first-time candidate. But he seized the spotlight at the first Republican debate, becoming a top target for rivals and positioning himself as a Trump-like political outsider with far-right views. He centered his campaign on opposition to all things “woke,” tapping into a common theme for conservatives who have criticized diversity programs and certain concepts of race and gender. Among Ramaswamy’s proposals: ending affirmative action and raising the voting age to 25.
Dropped out
U.S. senator
Tim Scott, the only Black U.S. senator in the GOP, suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in November after his optimistic message failed to catch fire. Scott had highlighted his family’s “cotton to Congress” story while also declaring that “America is not defined by our original sin, pitching himself as an unusually compelling messenger against the political left.
Dropped out
Mayor of Miami
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez ended his long-shot 2024 presidential campaign in August, less than three months after he launched it. He was the only Hispanic candidate in the field and the third candidate from Florida. Suarez, 45, failed to qualify for the first Republican debate after falling short of the necessary polling requirements.
Democrats
Announced ✓
President of the United States
Biden is seeking reelection, saying he wants to “finish the job” he started when the country was besieged by a deadly pandemic, a reeling economy and a teetering democracy. Polling shows that many Democrats would prefer a nominee other than Biden in 2024, and at 80 he is the oldest president in U.S. history to seek a second term. But major Democratic leaders have not taken steps to challenge him, and his party’s better-than-expected performance in the 2022 midterms helped quiet critics.
[How Democrats across the country feel about Biden 2024]
Dropped out
U.S. representative
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) announced a long-shot primary challenge to President Biden in 2024. While Phillips’s political views are broadly aligned with those of Biden, Phillips has for months called on Biden to allow another Democrat to lead the Democratic ticket in 2024. “I’m representing what I believe to be the majority of the country that wants to turn the page,” Phillips said recently on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Tired of the meanness and the fearmongering of Donald Trump. I would like to see Joe Biden, a wonderful and remarkable man, pass the torch, cement this extraordinary legacy.”
Announced ✓
Author
Activist and self-help author Marianne Williamson is waging a long-shot bid for the Democratic nomination. Williamson is positioning herself to Biden’s left, advocating tuition-free higher education at public institutions, among other initiatives. She also ran for president in 2020, calling for “a moral and spiritual awakening” in the United States, and dropped out shortly before the first nominating contests. “We need to offer fundamental economic reform. Nothing short of that will beat the Republicans in 2024,” she told The Post in an interview.
Independents
Announced ✓
Lawyer and author
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a controversial member of the storied Kennedy family who is known for his anti-vaccine views, parlayed his famous last name into years of advocacy as an environmental lawyer and best-selling author. In recent years, however, he has become better-known as one of the country’s most prominent opponents of vaccines and peddled false claims linking them to autism. He gained even more notoriety during the pandemic while spreading disinformation about coronavirus vaccines.
Announced ✓
Jill Stein announced that she is entering the 2024 presidential race as a Green Party candidate. “Democrats have betrayed their promises for working people, youth and the climate again and again, while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place,” Stein said in her announcement video. “And both parties are a danger to our democracy — expanding censorship, criminalizing protests, throwing competitors off the ballot, suppressing debates, rigging their primaries.”
Azi Paybarah, Michael Scherer, Tyler Pager, Maeve Reston, Toluse Olorunnipa, Mariana Alfaro, Meryl Kornfield, Maegan Vazquez and John Wagner contributed to this report. Photo editing by Christine Nguyen. Illustrations by Ben Kirchner for The Washington Post.
