The 2024 election season is under way, with Donald Trump the lone Republican candidate left seeking to unseat the sitting president, Joe Biden. After the pandemic changed the way Americans campaigned and voted four years ago, and three years after thousands of rioters waged violent protest at the nation’s Capitol to upend the last election’s results, the US will face new obstacles in carrying out the democratic process.
Both Biden and Trump clinched their parties’ respective nominations in March. Here is the full list of candidates as of 10 April.
Republicans
Democrats
Independent or third party
Dropped out
Republicans
Donald Trump
Former president of the United States
Former president Donald Trump is the top contender for the Republican party nomination, even as he faces several legal hurdles, including federal charges over obstructing justice and violating the Espionage Act. Trump, a longtime businessman, unsuccessfully ran for re-election as president in 2020, and refused to accept the outcome of the results. Trump most recently said he is pro-life, and would continue his hardline immigration stance in a second term if elected. He has also renewed attacks on trans people, especially athletes, and his anti-China agenda.
Trump won big in Iowa, with 51% of votes – full Republican results
In New Hampshire, Trump beat Haley by 10 points – full New Hampshire primary results
Trump wins Nevada caucuses in effective one-horse race – Nevada primary results in full
Trump beat Haley in her home state – full South Carolina primary results
Trump defeats Haley in Michigan – full Michigan primary results
Trump swept to victory in states across the US on Super Tuesday – full primary results
Trump won primary elections in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state in March
Trump won in Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio and Florida in March
Trump won primary elections in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin in April
Back to top
Democrats
Joe Biden
President of the United States
Running mate: Kamala Harris
Joe Biden is the likely Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election. He announced his campaign for re-election on 25 April 2023, exactly four years after he announced his previous, successful presidential campaign. While approval for Biden remains low, hovering just above 40%, political experts say he is the most likely candidate to defeat Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Biden has served in politics for over five decades and is running on a platform that includes abortion rights, gun reform and healthcare. At 81, he is the oldest president in US history.
Biden took 96.2% of the vote in a write-in campaign in New Hampshire – full primary results
Biden easily won first Democratic contest in South Carolina – full primary results
Biden won but sheds support over Gaza – full Michigan primary results
Biden swept to victory in states across the US on Super Tuesday – full primary results
Biden won primary elections in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state in March
Biden won in Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, and Ohio in March
Biden won primary elections in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin in April
Back to top
Cenk Uygur
Political commentator and media host
Cenk Uygur announced the longest of long-shot campaigns in October. Now 53, the outspoken host of the progressive Young Turks TV show has no experience in elected office – though he did run for Congress in California in 2020 – but perhaps more importantly he was born in Istanbul, Turkey. Most legal scholars would say that makes him ineligible to be president, under article II, section I, clause 5 of the US constitution, which says only “natural born citizens” can hold the office. Uygur says otherwise, and promises to prove it in court. He also says Democrats need to ditch Biden or face losing the White House to Trump.
Back to top
Marianne Williamson
Author
Failed 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, who also unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives in 2014, became the first Democratic candidate to announce she is running for president as a challenge to Joe Biden. Williamson, an author of self-help books, launched her long-shot bid with campaign promises to address climate change and student loan debt. She previously worked as “spiritual leader” of a Michigan Unity church.
Marianne Williamson ended her campaign to for the Democratic presidential nomination on 7 Feb.
Marianne Williamson ‘un-suspends’ campaign after Michigan primary
Back to top
Third party
Robert F Kennedy Jr
Lawyer and author
Running mate: Nicole Shanahan
Robert F Kennedy Jr, known for his work as an environmental lawyer and his anti-vaccine views, said he was running for president to end the “chronic disease epidemic”. Kennedy, who compared vaccine mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic to “Hitler’s Germany”, has promoted other baseless conspiracy theories such as telecom networks being used to control people. He is the nephew of John F Kennedy, the former Democratic president, who was assassinated in office, and is the son of 1968 Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy, who was assassinated on the campaign trail.
Back to top
Jill Stein
Doctor and activist
Back to top
Cornel West
Professor and progressive activist
Running mate: Melina Abdullah
The progressive activist Cornel West announced in a video posted to Twitter that he is running for president as a member of the People’s party, a third party headed by a former campaign staffer for Bernie Sanders. West is currently a professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary and previously worked at Harvard but resigned, saying the school had an “intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths”.
Back to top
Dropped out
Ryan Binkley
Businessman and pastor
Dropped out 27 February 2024
Binkley, a Texas businessman, is a long-shot candidate who is also a pastor at Create church. The self-proclaimed far-right fiscal conservative criticized both Democrats and Republicans for not being able to balance the federal budget, and said he would focus on health costs, immigration reform and a national volunteer movement.
Back to top
Doug Burgum
Governor of North Dakota
Dropped out 4 December 2023
Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, announced his campaign in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal on 6 June 2023. Viewed as a surprise, long-shot candidate, he touted his experience as a career businessman and leaned on his small-town roots in an announcement video titled Change. As governor, Burgum signed into law a near-total abortion ban, which makes the procedure illegal after six weeks, and only permissible in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency up to that point. He supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 and in 2020.
Back to top
Chris Christie
Former governor of New Jersey
Dropped out 10 January 2024
The former New Jersey governor has emerged as one of the harshest Republican critics of Donald Trump, whom he endorsed for president in 2016 after dropping out of that race. Christie says he broke ties with the former president after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, claiming that he hadn’t spoken to Trump since then. Christie, a lawyer and a lobbyist who served as a US attorney appointed by George W Bush, announced he was running for president a second time on 6 June 2023 in New Hampshire during a town hall.
Back to top
Ron DeSantis
Governor of Florida
Dropped out 21 January 2024
Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida was predicted to be the strongest contender for the GOP nomination against Donald Trump, consistently polling second among Republican primary voters. He made his formal announcement on Twitter, during a Spaces event attended by roughly 300,000 users that was riddled with technological glitches, on 24 May 2023. DeSantis, who has served as Florida’s governor since 2019 and handily defeated the Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, in 2022, previously represented Florida’s sixth congressional district as a member of the US House from 2012 to 2018. As governor, DeSantis has signed a slate of laws banning minors from receiving gender-affirming care and restricting education on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, and he has become an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist party.
Back to top
Larry Elder
Conservative radio host
Dropped out 26 October 2023
The rightwing political commentator and radio talkshow host announced his run for president on Fox News as a guest on the now-canceled Tucker Carlson Tonight on 20 April 2023. In 2021, Elder joined a list of Republicans seeking to replace Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, in a failed recall. The Los Angeles resident was an outspoken critic of the state’s mask mandates, calling them “a joke”.
Back to top
Nikki Haley
Former ambassador to the United Nations
Dropped out 6 March 2024
Haley, who got her start in politics as a member of South Carolina’s general assembly, was governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017. She ended her second term early to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations under Donald Trump before announcing her resignation in 2018. She became the first Republican to announce a run against Donald Trump, even though she previously said she would not run against him. Haley has vowed to “fix” the US immigration system by “stopping illegal immigration” and described herself as pro-life, but said a federal abortion ban was unrealistic. Haley, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, would be the first US president of Asian descent, as well as the first woman.
Haley loses to ‘none of the candidates’ in Nevada – full primary results
Haley wins surprise Vermont victory on Super Tuesday – full primary results
Back to top
Will Hurd
Former congressman from Texas
Dropped out 10 October 2023
Former US Representative Will Hurd, of Texas, entered the crowded primary field as a moderate and critic of Donald Trump. Hurd announced his campaign in an interview on CBS. He followed that with a video posted online in which he called Trump a “lawless, selfish, failed politician” and laid out an agenda to curb “illegal immigration”, inflation, crime and homelessness. Hurd, who worked for nearly a decade in the CIA, served three terms in the House, from 2015 to 2021. He left office as the only Black Republican in the chamber.
Back to top
Asa Hutchinson
Former governor of Arkansas
Dropped out 16 January 2024
Hutchinson is the former governor of Arkansas, a post he held from 2015 to 2023. The relatively unknown politician announced his candidacy in an interview on ABC days after Trump was indicted in a Manhattan court, saying the ex-president should drop out of the race. Hutchinson is a businessman and lawyer who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to serve as a US attorney. He also served a stint in the US House of Representatives, winning a congressional seat in 1996 when he replaced his brother, Tim, who ran for Senate.
Back to top
Perry Johnson
Businessman
Dropped out 20 October 2023
Johnson is a businessman who ran unsuccessfully for governor of Michigan in 2022 after providing fraudulent nominating signatures for that campaign. Originally from Illinois, Johnson founded dozens of companies, and lives in Michigan with his family. He has billed himself as Donald Trump “without the baggage” and has taken similar policy positions on curbing US debt and cracking down on the FBI.
Back to top
Mike Pence
Former vice-president of the United States
Dropped out 28 October 2023
Mike Pence officially launched his campaign for president on 7 June 2023, in a rare instance of a former vice-president challenging the president with whom he shared a ticket a few years ago. Pence joined a crowded Republican field in which he has consistently polled third, even before he officially announced his candidacy, though he trails far behind DeSantis and Trump. Pence was angling for a wide base among evangelical Christians and had vowed to ban abortion if he were elected. He denounced the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and had used it as a talking point against Trump, who turned against him after he publicly refused supporters’ calls to overturn the results of the election.
Back to top
Dean Phillips
Representative from Minnesota
Dropped out 6 March 2024
Dean Phillips, a three-term Democratic congressman from Minnesota, is challenging Biden, saying the next generation should have the opportunity to lead the country. Phillips is the heir to a distilling company and once co-owned a gelato company. He entered public office spurred by fighting back against Trump.
Back to top
Vivek Ramaswamy
Entrepreneur and author
Dropped out 16 January 2024
The biotech entrepreneur and political newcomer announced his campaign in a video describing attacks on the “culture of free speech in America” and again on Fox News in an interview with now-fired Tucker Carlson. He is the author of Woke, Inc., a book that lobbies against “ESG” – a framework of corporate governance that encourages companies to consider the environment and social justice issues. Ramaswamy, who was the youngest candidate vying for the Republican nomination, had lobbied in favor of raising the national voting age to 25. Ramaswamy would have been the first president of Asian and Indian descent. He had also vowed to pardon federally indicted Donald Trump.
Back to top
Francis Suarez
Mayor of Miami
Dropped out 29 August 2023
Suarez, the mayor of Miami, was the first major Hispanic candidate seeking the Republican party nomination this election cycle. The son of Miami’s first Cuban-born mayor, Suarez had said he would broaden support for Republicans among Latino voters. He was the third candidate from Florida to join the crowded primary field, alongside frontrunners Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Suarez, who was first elected in 2017, filed paperwork to run the day after Trump appeared in a Miami court over federal charges and made his formal announcement on Good Morning America the day after that.
Back to top
Tim Scott
Senator from South Carolina
Dropped out 13 November 2023
In May, Scott became the second politician from South Carolina to run for the Republican nomination. He has served as a senator from South Carolina since 2013, when he was appointed by Republican challenger Nikki Haley to fill a vacancy. Scott, who is one of three Black members of the Senate and is the only Black Republican senator, said in his announcement speech that “America is not a racist country”. Scott joined fellow Republicans in opposing the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022. Scott served as a member of the House from 2011 to 2013 and before that spent stints in South Carolina’s general assembly and Charleston’s county council. During his 2010 campaign for the House of Representatives, Scott told Newsweek that homosexuality was a morally wrong choice.
Back to top
