Donald Trump
Age:76
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
The current frontrunner for the GOP and former President of the United States.
Twice impeached, criminally charged and generally full of controversy, former President Donald Trump is far from the ideal candidate to lead the Republican Party in 2024, but he’s proven before that he can command an audience — perhaps too well, after a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on his behalf to try and keep him in power after losing reelection to Joe Biden — and that’s enough to make him a serious contender.
Trump left the White House on a sour note, with members of his own party turning on him for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Since leaving office, several former staffers have come forward with shocking allegations about his conduct, and he continues to be the subject of multiple criminal investigations.
Still, Trump stayed active in politics, campaigning for far-right candidates throughout the 2022 midterm election cycle. His endorsees fared poorly at the polls, contributing to Republicans losing important races and suggesting the unpopularity of election denialism, but it didn’t faze him: On Nov. 15, 2022, he formally declared his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
On March 30, 2023, Trump made history as the first sitting or former president to face criminal charges when a Manhattan grand jury indicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to alleged hush money payments made to two women, including porn star Stormy Daniels, with whom he is widely believed to have had an affair several years ago. The charges are not expected to impact his 2024 campaign too much, but if other ongoing investigations result in charges as well, on-the-fence voters may fear he has too much baggage.
Ron DeSantis
Age:44
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s youngest governor in a century, was sworn in January 2019.
The Florida native was born in Jacksonville and then moved to Orlando with his family before relocating when he was 6 to Dunedin in the Tampa Bay area.
The descendant of Italian immigrants, his mother worked as a nurse and his father installed Nielsen TV rating boxes for a living.
One political ad, already airing in key early primary states, touts his blue-collar roots.
“Grandson of a steelworker, Ron DeSantis worked his way through college,” the ad states.
DeSantis graduated from Yale University, where he was captain of the varsity baseball team.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Age: 37
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
A leading manufacturer of the corporate anti-woke movement, conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is eager to take on Trump in the Republican primary, announcing his presidential campaign in late February 2023. The businessman is running on a platform of unity — one that’s deceivingly divisive.
Ramaswamy, an Ohio native whose parents immigrated from India, has been outspoken against companies using their platforms for social causes and has echoed views of many far-right Republicans today that America’s values are in decline, citing critical race theory, affirmative action, environmentalism and self-victimization as things that he believes destroyed the nation’s once-shared identity.
“We’ve celebrated our ‘diversity’ so much that we forgot all the ways we’re really the same as Americans, bound by ideals that united a divided, headstrong group of people 250 years ago,” he wrote in a tweet when he announced his campaign. “I believe deep in my bones those ideals still exist. I’m running for President to revive them.”
In addition to founding tech and health care companies, Ramaswamy is the best-selling author of Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, leading the New Yorker to dub him as the “CEO of Anti-Woke, Inc.” His book proved him a political thought leader in conservative spheres and earned him regular appearances on Fox News alongside Tucker Carlson, whose hot-tempered tone has seemingly rubbed off on Ramaswamy.
To many on the right, Ramaswamy is a familiar face with intriguing ideas about business and the economy, which will prove a useful reputation as he fights his way through the Republican primary season with far more prominent GOP opponents. The question is whether he can really unite Americans in the way he hopes, or if his foray into right-wing culture wars will come back to haunt him.
Tim Scott
Age:57
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
Scott, the three-term South Carolina senator and only Black Republican in the chamber, has framed much of his candidacy around pushing back against Democrats’ views on systemic racism and other disparities in the US. Over the past few years, he’s repeatedly cited his own success as negating the idea that Black Americans are disadvantaged by systematic racism and as proof that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
In an April video launching a committee to explore a potential 2024 run, Scott describes how he grew up in poverty, was raised by a single mother in South Carolina, and became a member of the US Senate.
“They know the truth of my life disproves their lies,” Scott said of Democrats. “I know America is a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. I know it because I’ve lived it.”
As a senator, Scott has struck a similar tone on race, simultaneously acknowledging its role in American life while arguing that racism is largely something that infects individuals rather than being something for society to grapple with. He has previously called out discrimination he’s faced by police, including being pulled over at traffic stops, for example, while calling law enforcement a “noble” profession. Scott touched on these themes during a recent listening tour in Iowa and South Carolina, as well, urging audiences to acknowledge the progress that the US has made.
As an evangelical, Scott is also making abortion restrictions a pillar of his campaign. He recently voiced support for a six-week abortion ban in his home state that has now been blocked in court. He has also said that he would enact a 15-week national ban on abortion or “the most conservative pro-life legislation Congress can pass” if elected president.
He’s also echoed standard Republican talking points criticizing “Biden liberals” and touting conservative positions on issues like immigration and crime. Legislatively, Scott is known for serving as the GOP’s lead negotiator on police reform and as the sponsor of bipartisan legislation to establish “opportunity zones”’ that intend to drive investment to low-income areas via tax incentives.
Asa Hutchinson
Age:72
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
In early April, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a longtime Trump critic, joined the GOP field.
Hutchinson, a former federal prosecutor who worked on former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, previously told ABC that he thought Trump should withdraw from the race in light of the criminal charges he’s facing in connection to hush money payments made to the porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign. But Hutchinson also acknowledged that Trump probably won’t do that and there’s nothing stopping him from carrying on.
“I mean, first of all, the office is more important than any individual person. And so for the sake of the office of the presidency, I do think that’s too much of a sideshow and distraction, and he needs to be able to concentrate on his due process,” Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson served eight years as Arkansas governor before stepping down in January because he was term-limited. While in office, he pushed a conservative agenda centered on a near-total ban on abortion without exceptions for cases involving rape and incest, a law banning trans women from participating in school sports teams, and bans on Covid-19 vaccine mandates and state and local mask mandates.
He later expressed regret at the lack of exceptions to the abortion ban and that he wanted to reverse the ban on mask mandates amid an August 2021 surge in coronavirus cases.
Nikki Haley
Age:51
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
Though she had previously dismissed the prospect of running against Trump if he sought reelection, Trump’s US ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley announced in mid-February that she’s running.
Haley framed herself as a moderate candidate relative to Trump who can win in a general election. “Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change,” Haley said in her announcement video. “It’s time for a new generation of leadership.”
The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley is centering her pitch for the presidency on foreign policy. In particular, she’s suggested that she would take a hardline stance against America’s foes abroad. She had one of the highest approval ratings of anyone in the Trump administration and was well-respected by her peers on the UN Security Council even when espousing controversial policy decisions, such as Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate accords, and the UN Human Rights Council.
In an environment where most Americans cite government and inflation as the top issues facing the US, it’s not clear whether that foreign policy experience will resonate with voters. But Haley has conservative credentials, too.
She won the South Carolina governorship in 2011 with the support of the conservative Tea Party wing of the Republican Party and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She went on to tighten voter ID laws, oppose Syrian refugee resettlement in the state, and earn bipartisan praise for signing a bill to take down the Confederate flag from the state capitol after a gunman killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015. In her announcement video, she hit typical conservative priorities, railing against the “socialist left” while calling for securing the border and fiscal responsibility.
But she’s also waded into culture war battles. At a campaign event in May, she went on a rant against a trans influencer who partnered with Bud Light, resulting in a widespread conservative boycott of the brand. She also declared herself to be “unapologetically pro-life” while avoiding questions about whether she would enact a national abortion ban.
If Haley prevails, she would be the first woman and first Asian American to win the GOP nomination for president, adding to the list of firsts she has already achieved: South Carolina’s first woman governor and the first Indian American to serve in a statewide office there.
Larry Elder
Age:71
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
Conservative radio host Larry Elder, a frequent talking head on Fox News, announced his long-shot candidacy in May. He has never held political office but led the race to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, in an unsuccessful recall campaign in 2021.
“America is in decline, but this decline is not inevitable. We can enter a new American Golden Age, but we must choose a leader who can bring us there,” he tweeted of his decision to run for president.
Elder, a vocal Trump supporter, has espoused conservative stances on issues from abortion rights to pandemic restrictions, including mask mandates. And as a Black man, he has critiqued the Black Lives Matter movement and called the idea of systemic racism a “lie,” even though he had framed his policies in the recall election as benefiting Black people.
He also attributed rising crime in 2021 to a policing pullback spurred by Democratic policies. “When you reduce the possibility of a bad guy getting caught, getting convicted and getting incarcerated, guess what? Crime goes up,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
He’s been polling below potential candidates that haven’t yet entered the presidential race, however, so it’s hard to see a path forward for his candidacy.
Mike Pence
Age:64
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
Former Vice President, Pence, who earlier this year said that Trump’s words on Jan. 6, 2021, were “reckless,” did not name his former boss directly in his campaign announcement video.
His campaign pitch: Pence has touted some policy accomplishments from the Trump administration, but has made a pitch for “different leadership.” An evangelical Christian, Pence’s faith guides many of his policy stances, such as his strong opposition to abortion.
Chris Christie
Age:60
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
Christie, is running for president for a second time after an unsuccessful bid in 2016. A former close ally to Trump, Christie is now a staunch critic of the former president, calling him a “coward” and “puppet of Putin.”
His campaign pitch: Christie is presenting himself as the candidate with the “guts” and fearlessness to engage with Trump and show voters that it is time for the Republican Party to move past the former president.
Doug Burgum
Age: 66
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
Burgum, a two-term governor of North Dakota and former software entrepreneur, entered the crowded Republican field in June.
His campaign pitch: Writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing his bid, Burgum said: “We need a new leader for a changing economy.” He touted his business experience and has made the economy a top policy priority.
Francis Suarez
Age: 45
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who speaks Spanish, brings an added layer of diversity to the Republican presidential field. And Republicans have struggled with Latinos in a demographically changing America. He is young and charismatic, and brings an “aspirational” message, as he calls it.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who speaks Spanish, brings an added layer of diversity to the Republican presidential field. And Republicans have struggled with Latinos in a demographically changing America. He is young and charismatic, and brings an “aspirational” message, as he calls it.
Will Hurd
Age: 45
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
He’s smart and young, and wants to talk about the future of the party and the country. He also brings diversity as one of two Black men running for the GOP nomination.
He’s largely out of step with where the heart of the Trump-loving GOP is. He called Trump “lawless” in his announcement video, said he should have dropped out after the Access Hollywood tape was made public in 2016 and he criticized the former president after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and over his administration’s family separation immigration policies. Though Hurd voted for a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, he has also looked for bipartisanship on issues from immigration to LGBTQ rights