Who’s running for president in 2024? Meet the candidates
Ron DeSantis
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DeSantis suspended his presidential campaign on Jan. 21, two days before the New Hampshire primary, posting a video on X saying he could not ask his campaign staffers to give their time “without a clear path to victory.”
“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said.
The Florida governor announced his run for presidency last May, launching his campaign in a live appearance on Twitter Spaces alongside the platform’s CEO, Elon Musk.
The conversation was beset by technical issues that delayed DeSantis’ announcement. His team said the hiccups demonstrated his popularity, since he “literally busted up the internet.”
He laid out an agenda of tackling national crime rates, promoting energy independence and addressing immigration.
“To voters who are participating in this primary process, my pledge to you is this: If you nominate me you can set your clock to January 20, 2025 at high noon, because on the west side of the U.S. Capitol I will be taking the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States. No excuses. I will get the job done,” the governor said.
The Florida governor is in his second term and was for a time considered to be the chief rival to Trump. The former president leveled attacks against DeSantis even before the governor officially entered the 2024 race.
During his time in Tallahassee, DeSantis has gained national recognition for his COVID-19 policies and embrace of the culture wars. DeSantis has also leaned into education issues, reshaping Florida’s public education policies and engaging in local school board races during the 2022 election cycle, and recently signed into law a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
Asa Hutchinson
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Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, was the fourth Republican to announce a 2024 presidential bid when he said he was getting in the race on April 2. He ended his campaign on the heels of the Iowa caucuses, where he placed fifth behind Trump, DeSantis, Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.
“My message of being a principled Republican with experience and telling the truth about the current frontrunner did not sell in Iowa,” Hutchinson said in a statement announcing his decision to drop out of the presidential race.
Hutchinson, 73, served two terms as governor from 2015 to 2023. A former congressman, he was also one of the House impeachment managers for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
He has said he opposes Trump’s third attempt to win the White House, describing a possible Trump 2024 nomination as the “worst scenario.”
Vivek Ramaswamy
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Ramaswamy, a former biotech executive, was considered a longshot for the Republican nomination but bolstered his profile with his appearances in the early Republican debates. He suspended his campaign after a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and threw his support behind Trump.
At 38 years old and with a net worth of roughly $600 million, Ramaswamy declared himself an “anti-woke” capitalist and decried corporate investment based on environmental, social and governance principles.
Ramaswamy is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, and has ties to Sen. J.D. Vance and major GOP donor Peter Thiel.
Chris Christie
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Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dropped out of the race on Jan. 10, 2024, bringing to a close a bid that focused almost exclusively on him criticizing former President Trump and pressing his Republican opponents to do the same.
His exit came a week before the Iowa caucuses and just over six months after Christie launched his second presidential campaign on June 6, 2023.
Christie has called Trump “a bitter, angry man who wants power back for himself” and framed his decision to run for president on his belief that the country is at a pivotal moment of having to choose between “big and small.”
The former New Jersey governor argued that in recent years the country has been helmed by people who have “led us to being small — small by their example, small by the way they conduct themselves, small by the things they tells us we should care about … They’re making us smaller by dividing us into smaller and smaller groups.”
“All throughout our history, there have been moments where we’ve had to choose between big and small,” he said. “I will tell you, the reason I’m here tonight is because this is one of those moments.”
Christie filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission formalizing his candidacy June 6 and made his announcement in New Hampshire.
Doug Burgum
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North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum jumped into the 2024 presidential race on June 7, 2023, the same day former Vice President Mike Pence officially launched his campaign.
“We need a change in the White House. We need a new leader for a changing economy. That’s why I’m announcing my run for president today,” Burgum wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
Burgum has served as North Dakota’s governor since 2016 and was reelected in 2020. A former software company CEO, he grew Great Plains Software into a $1 billion company that was acquired by Microsoft.
He ended his campaign on Dec. 4 after struggling to get name recognition from voters and failing to qualify for the third and fourth primary debate. Burgum endorsed Trump on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, becoming the first of his former GOP opponents to throw their support behind the former president’s White House bid.
“Four years ago, I was speaking on behalf of President Trump at the Iowa caucuses in Sioux City, and today, I’m here to do something that none of the other presidential primary candidates have done,” Burgum, who joined Trump at a campaign rally, said Jan. 14. “And that’s endorse Donald J. Trump for the president of the United States of America.”
Tim Scott
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Sen. Tim Scott, of South Carolina, announced in an interview with Fox News on Nov. 12, 2023, that he would be dropping out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination.
“I think the voters, who have been the most remarkable people on the planet, have been really clear. They’re telling me not now, Tim,” Scott said.
The South Carolina Republican said that he would not be endorsing another candidate and wasn’t interested in becoming a running mate, as “being vice president has never been on my to-do list for this campaign.”
Scott jumped into the presidential race in mid-May when he filed a statement of his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. He formally launched his presidential campaign at an event in his hometown of North Charleston on May 22, 2023.
“We live in the land of opportunity. We live in the land where it is absolutely possible for a kid raised in poverty, in a single-parent household, in a small apartment to one day serve in the people’s House and maybe even the White House,” Scott said in his campaign announcement.
Mike Pence
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The former vice president and Indiana governor filed the relevant paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on June 5, 2023, cementing his place in the GOP field. He launched his presidential campaign with a campaign video, and attended a kickoff event in Des Moines, Iowa.
“Different times call for different leadership,” Pence said in the video. “Today our party and our country need a leader that’ll appeal, as Lincoln said, to the better angels of our nature.”
The former vice president said it would be “easy to stay on the sidelines, but that’s not how I was raised. That’s why today, before God and my family, I’m announcing I’m running for president of the United States.”
Pence, who has been visiting early voting states while he mulled entering the race, has suggested he believes it’s time for the GOP to move on from Trump.
“I think we’re going to have new leadership in this party and in this country,” he told CBS News in January 2023.
Pence also has declined to commit to supporting Trump if he is the Republican nominee, instead saying that he believes GOP voters will choose “wisely again” in 2024 and thinks “different times call for different leadership.”
While Pence has promoted the policies of the Trump administration, he has also criticized the former president for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, saying that Trump’s words were “reckless” and put him and his family, who were on Capitol Hill that day for the joint session of Congress, in danger.
After languishing in the polls and struggling to fundraise, Pence suspended his campaign on Oct. 28, 2023, during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas.
“We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets,” Pence said. “To the American people, I say this is not my time, but this is your time. I urge you to hold fast to what matters most, faith, family, and the constitution of the United States of America.”
Francis Suarez
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Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced his decision to suspend his campaign in late August 2023, just two months after hopping into the 2024 race in mid-June. The move came after Suarez failed to qualify for the first Republican presidential primary debate, held in Milwaukee on Aug. 23.
“Running for president of the United States has been one of the greatest honors of my life,” he said. “This country has given so much to my family and me. The prospect of giving back at the highest levels of public service is a motivator if not a calling. Throughout this process, I have met so many freedom-loving Americans who care deeply about our nation, her people, and its future. It was a privilege to come so close to appearing on stage with the other candidates at last week’s first debate.”
Suarez, who is Cuban American, was the only Latino GOP candidate in the 2024 field. He was the second Florida politician to enter the race and has been critical of certain aspects of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policies and personality. He called DeSantis’ ongoing feud with Disney a “personal vendetta,” and told Fox News that the governor “seems to struggle with relationships, generally.”
Will Hurd
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Former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas announced on Oct. 9, 2023, that he would be suspending his campaign and endorsing Haley for the Republican presidential nominee.
“While I appreciate all the time and energy our supporters have given, it is important to recognize the realities of the political landscape and the need to consolidate our party around one person to defeat both Donald Trump and President Biden,” Hurd said in a statement.
The former congressman said Haley has “shown a willingness to articulate a different vision for the country than Donald Trump,” and called her knowledge of foreign policy “unmatched.”
Hurd’s decision to leave the race came less than four months after he announced his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in an interview with “CBS Mornings.”
Hurd, 46, worked as an officer in the CIA for nearly a decade and ran to represent Texas’s 23rd Congressional District in 2014. He defeated the incumbent Democrat by just 2,500 votes and went on to win reelection twice before declining to seek another term in 2020.
Hurd has not shied away from criticizing Trump, including over his handing of classified records and immigration policies, as well as his incendiary tweets. The former congressman authored an op-ed in 2018 that declared Trump is being manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Larry Elder
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Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder suspended his long-shot presidential campaign on Oct. 26, 2023. He tweeted that he had met with Trump “to lend him my endorsement for President.”
He added, “I am grateful for the support I received from so many of you across the country.”
Elder was a gubernatorial candidate during California’s failed 2021 effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom. He kept his post, but Elder received the most votes — nearly 3.6 million — out of a large field trying to replace Newsom.
Elder announced his bid for president the previous April.
Nikki Haley
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Nikki Haley ended her presidential bid on March 6, after losing nearly all the states holding Republican nominating contests on Super Tuesday. Exit polls showed Trump leading Haley among broad segments of the GOP electorate, with voters saying immigration and the economy were their most important issues.
Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, joined the race for the Republican presidential nomination in mid-February of last year, becoming the first challenger to her former boss.
In her pitch to voters, Haley, 51, has characterized herself as part of a new generation of Republican leadership and proposed mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75 — a subtle jab at Trump, who is 77, and Mr. Biden, who is 81.
The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, and served two terms as governor. She was the top U.S. diplomat at the United Nations during the Trump administration from January 2017 to December 2018.
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