Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Trump/Vance and blue denotes those won by Harris/Walz. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia.[3]
The 2024 United States presidential election was the 60th quadrennial presidential election. The election was held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, along with other state and federal elections. It is the first presidential election to use population information from the 2020 census.[4] The Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Ohio U.S. senator JD Vance won the election. They defeated the Democratic ticket of incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Former President Donald Trumpran for reelection for a non-consecutive term. He picked OhioU.S. SenatorJD Vance as his running mate. He is the first President to serve two non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland. In 2023 and 2024, Trump was found liable and guilty in civil and criminal proceedings, becoming the first former president to be convicted of a crime.[7] Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13, 2024.
Trump won a decisive victory, winning 312 electoral college votes to Harris' 226. Additionally, Trump became the first Republican to win the national popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004. Trump and Vance won the election in the early hours of November 6 as the next and 47th president and 50th vice president of the United States.[22] Harris called Trump on November 6 to congratulate him.[23] She delivered a concession speech later that day.[24][25] Trump is the second president to be elected to a non-consecutive second term, 132 years after Grover Cleveland won the 1892 election. Trump is also the oldest person ever elected president, at the age of 78.[26] Harris is the most recent sitting vice president to run for the presidency and lose since Al Gore in 2000 and the most recent Democratic presidential nominee to lose the national popular vote since John Kerry in 2004.[27]
Article Two of the United States Constitution states that for a person to serve as president, the person must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years old, and have been a United States resident for at least 14 years. The Twenty-second Amendment prevents anyone from being elected president more than twice.
Campaign topics
Abortion
The Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision in June 2022 overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, allowing U.S. states to fully ban abortion for the first time in almost 50 years. This made abortion a campaign issue. The Republicans have been linked to Project 2025, which asks to completely ban abortion in the country.
Crime
Due to more mass shootings in the United States, President Biden has advocated a ban of assault weapons. This is most likely a major campaign topic to play out in both parties.
Inflation
Republicans have blamed Democrats for the high inflation rates from 2021 to 2023.
Joe Biden is the current president, elected for his first term in office in the 2020 election, and has said he planned to run for a second term in 2024. He is the oldest president, at age 78, and would've been 82 at the end of his first term and 86 at the end of a second term, if he was reelected.
During late 2021, as President Biden had low approval ratings in the polls, there was speculation that he would not run for reelection.[28] If this happened, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg would be considered likely candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, having both run for president in 2020.[29][30] However, Biden said he had every intention of running for reelection.[31]
In March 2023, author and 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson announced her presidential campaign, challenging Biden.[32] In April 2023, environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his challenge to Biden, becoming the second Democratic challenger to Biden.[33] On April 25, 2023, President Joe Biden announced he was running for re-election with Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate.[34]
In October 2023, Kennedy Jr. announced he would be withdrawing from the Democratic primary to run an Independent campaign for president.[35][36] A few weeks later, U.S. Representative from MinnesotaDean Phillips announced his candidacy on October 26, 2023.[37] Spiritual author Marianne Williamson ended her campaign on February 7, 2024.[38] She would then re-enter the race a few weeks later after winning 3% of the vote in the Michigan primary.[38] Williamson would end her campaign again on June 11, 2024.[38]
During the first presidential debate in late June, many people saw that Biden did not do well with his polling numbers showing him losing to Trump by a bigger margin than before.[39] Many Democrats wanted him to end his campaign with Marianne Williamson re-entering the race a third time.[38][40][41] On July 21, 2024, Biden announced that he was ending his presidential campaign, allowing the Democratic Party to choose a new candidate. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination.[42] The next day, most of the delegates said they would vote for Harris, enough for her to become the presumptive nominee.[43]
Although after the January 6 insurrection may have severely damaged his public opinion about him. House Democrats considered using the Fourteenth Amendment to prevent Trump from being eligible to run again. Trump is the first president since Richard Nixon to win his party's nomination three times in a row.
The last president to run after leaving office was Theodore Roosevelt, who came in second in the 1912 election as the candidate of the Progressive Party, although Herbert Hoover did seek the Republican nomination at national conventions after leaving office in 1933. On November 11, 2022, former Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton became the first Republican major candidate.[71]
Following the first debate, Suarez withdrew from the election on August 29, after saying non-debate qualified candidates should withdraw from the race.[83] In early October 2023, Hurd and Stapleton withdrew from their candidacies with Hurd supporting Haley.[84][85] By the end of the month, Johnson and Elder suspended their campaigns and endorsed Trump,[86][87] whereas Pence dropped out without supporting anyone.[88] On November 12, Senator Tim Scott ended his campaign after having low polling numbers.[89] On December 4, Burgum ended his campaign after low polling numbers and failing to qualify for the last two debates.[90]
On January 10, 2024, a week before the Iowa caucus, former Governor Chris Christie ended his campaign, after Trump critics urged him to drop out to help Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire primary.[91] Following Trump's win in the Iowa caucus on January 15, 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy ended his campaign and endorsed Trump,[92] whereas former Governor Asa Hutchinson ended his campaign the following day and endorsed Healey.[93] On January 21, Governor Ron DeSantis ended his campaign and endorsed Trump.[94] On February 27, pastor Ryan Binkley ended his campaign and endorsed Trump.[95]
Similar to other Presidential campaigns, Trump has the issue of age —he turned 78 in June and there was the idea to do, He would be 82, If his term ends.
The candidate in this section have suspended their campaigns, or have otherwise ceased campaigning and ended their bids for the nomination during the primary season.
Withdrawn major candidates for the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries
The candidates in this section have suspended their campaigns, or have otherwise ceased campaigning and ended their bids for the nomination before any primary contests were held.
Withdrawn major candidates for the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries
Community organizer Claudia De la Cruz announced her campaign for president on September 7, 2023 with Karina Garcia as her running mate under the Party for Socialism and Liberation ticket.[139] In 2024, Democrats have been working to keep PSL candidate Claudia De la Cruz along with some other third-party candidates like Cornel West off of ballots,[140] while Republicans have been working to get them onto ballots.[140]
On March 29, 2024, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry declared his candidacy in the presidential election.[141] He was nominated by the Constitution Party for president on April 27, 2024.[142] He said he would not accept the nomination if Stephen Broden was not nominated for vice president.[143]
On June 2, 2023, the American Solidarity Party announced that former radio host and museum director Peter Sonski had been selected as the party's presidential nominee.[144] He was selected after winning the party's online primary.[144] Teacher and non-profit executive Lauren Onak from Massachusetts was selected as his running mate after being the only person to run for the vice presidential nomination.[145]
Cornel West is a socialist activist and intellectual who announced a campaign as an independent after initially announcing a run as a People's Party and later a Green Party candidate. His running mate is Melina Abdullah, an academic and civic leader from California.
Shiva Ayyadurai is an activist, inventor and businessman whose career focuses on biological systems and computer science. He announced his Independent campaign for president on April 19, 2023.[146][147] His running mate is Crystal Ellis, who is an entrepreneur and activist from Nebraska.
LOESS graph of the opinion polling between Harris and Trump taken during 2024. The dashed line is when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee.
LOESS graph of the opinion polling between Harris and Trump since the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The dashed lines are when both candidates became the presumptive nominees for their respective parties.
Edsall, Thomas B. (April 12, 2023). "How The Right Came To Embrace Intrusive Government". The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023. Republicans in states across the country are defiantly pushing for the criminalization of abortion — of the procedure, of abortifacient drugs and of those who travel out of state to terminate pregnancy... According to research provided to The Times by the Kaiser Family Foundation, states that have abortion bans at various early stages of pregnancy with no exception for rape or incest include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
↑ 92.092.1Weisman, Jonathan (January 15, 2024). "Vivek Ramaswamy Drops Out of 2024 Presidential Race". The New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2024. Vivek Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old entrepreneur and political newcomer who briefly made a splash with brash policy proposals and an outsize sense of confidence, dropped out of the race for the Republican White House nomination after a disappointing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. He endorsed former President Donald J. Trump for the White House.
↑"Statement of Candidacy"(PDF). docquery.fec.gov. February 14, 2023. Archived(PDF) from the original on February 16, 2023. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
↑ 140.0140.1Amy, Jeff (August 29, 2024). "Georgia puts Cornel West, Jill Stein and Claudia De la Cruz on the state's presidential ballots". AP News. Retrieved August 30, 2024. Democrats legally challenged West, De la Cruz, Kennedy and Stein, seeking to block candidates who could siphon votes from Harris after Joe Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020...Georgia is one of several states where Democrats and allied groups have filed challenges to third-party and independent candidates. Republicans in Georgia intervened, seeking to keep all the candidates on the ballot.