Tuesday, November 5, 2024, is the election day of the 60th quadrennial US presidential election. Voters in the District of Columbia and each state will choose a slate of electors for the US Electoral College. These electors will then select a president and vice president for four-year terms.

2024 Presidential Election History

Democratic Party

Democratic Party member and current president Joe Biden first sought reelection before assuming the role of the party’s presumed nominee on March 12. However, Biden dropped his race for presidency on July 21 and actively supported Vice President Kamala Harris.

She announced her presidential candidacy the same day, after Biden performed poorly in the June 2024 presidential debate and growing concerns about his age and health. A day later, she had many delegate sponsorships to take over as the new presumptive nominee.

With his withdrawal, Biden becomes the first sitting president who is eligible to run for office again since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. He is also the first to do so after earning enough delegate votes to win the nomination.

Presumably, Harris will be the first presidential nominee since Hubert Humphrey, who did not take part in the 1968 primary. And due to the widespread support in the United States, Kamala Harris’ approval rating looks very promising.

Republican Party

After falling short of Biden in the 2020 presidential contest, Republican nominee President Donald Trump is vying for a second, non-consecutive term. On March 12, he was declared the party’s presumed nominee.

Before the presidential election, Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies relating to falsifying business records in a criminal trial. This made him the first president to be found guilty of a crime. He was also held responsible for legal litigation for sexual abuse and slander in 2023 and 2024.

An attacker shot him during an attempted assassination on July 13 at a Pennsylvania campaign rally. On July 15, at the 2024 Republican National Convention, Trump and Ohio senator JD Vance, who would serve as his running mate, received nominations.

Trump and a few other Republicans have declared that if they think the 2024 election results are “unfair,” they will not accept them.

The allegations are part of a broader campaign to deny the results of the election. Legal scholars, political scientists, and historians have all criticised Trump’s campaign for his increasingly authoritarian remarks and his use of violent and dehumanising language against people he perceives as political rivals.

Trump’s attempts to use military aid to force Ukraine to provide false information about Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections and to obtain damaging information about Joe Biden led to his first impeachment. The Democratic House of Representatives impeached him in December 2019 for obstruction of Congress and misuse of power. Hence, people are not happy about his rerun and are scared of what might happen if he comes back to the White House.

2024 US Presidential Election: Presidential Candidates

Democratic convention delegates, nearly all of whom are free agents due to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the contest, will cast their votes to determine the Democratic nominee for president. A simulated roll call vote, slated for August 1–August 5, will allow delegates to select a new nominee.

Kamala Harris, the vice president, was the only eligible candidate. A candidate needed to send the signatures of at least 300 delegates by July 30 at 6 pm, 2024, to be eligible for the virtual roll call. 3,923 delegates signed signatures that Harris’ campaign submitted.

On July 22, 2024, an Associated Press poll of Democratic delegates determined that Vice President Kamala Harris had reached the majority delegate threshold needed to become the Democratic nominee for president.

Democratic Party Candidates

Biden’s low approval ratings in late 2021 raised rumours that he wouldn’t run for reelection, and three Democratic representatives—Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Tim Ryan, and former Representative Joe Cunningham—publicly urged him not to.

Many were worried about Biden’s age in addition to his unpopularity; at 78 years old, he was the oldest person to take office and would turn 82 at the end of his first term. By the time his second term ended, he would’ve been 86 if re-elected.

In April 2023, an NBC poll revealed that 70% of Americans, including 51% of Democrats, thought Biden shouldn’t seek reelection. Nearly half of them claimed that his age was the reason. The national polling average for FiveThirtyEight showed that 41% of respondents approved of Biden and 55% disapproved.

In mid-July, Biden received a COVID-19 diagnosis. After a widely criticized debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27, 2024, he announced on July 21 that he would retract from the presidential contest, enabling the Democratic Party to select a new candidate.

He supported Kamala Harris, the current vice president, in her bid for the presidency. Harris declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in 2024 shortly after.

Harris obtained enough delegates’ endorsements by the end of the next day, July 22, to take over as the Democratic Party’s presumed nominee. Official selection of the party’s nominee will take place at the Democratic National Convention, which is set for August 19–22.

Republican Party Candidates

The then-incumbent president, Donald Trump, lost to Biden in the 2020 election. Because he is not subject to term limits, he can run for office once more in 2024, which makes him the fifth former president to do so. After Grover Cleveland in 1892, Trump would be the 2nd president to win a non-consecutive term if he prevails.

The former president and Nikki Haley were the only remaining contenders. Haley, a former South Carolina governor, served in Trump’s cabinet. Trump won the Iowa caucuses decisively. He defeated DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump won all four of the early voting contests, while Haley’s campaign struggled to gain traction.

Haley halted her campaign on March 6, 2024, the day after winning just one primary from the 15 on Super Tuesday. Trump emerged as the sole prominent contender for the Republican presidential candidacy.

Trump formally assumed the role of the presumed Republican presidential nominee on March 12, 2024.

During the opening day of the Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024, Trump formally declared Senator JD Vance as his running mate. Days earlier, Trump had escaped an attempted assassination after being shot in the ear.

Trump accepted the Republican National Convention’s nomination on July 18, 2024, to become the party’s presidential candidate. He was the Republican candidate in this election for the third time in a row. Trump’s vice president is JD Vance. And there are many other vice-presidential running mates for other parties.

Working-class voters have been moving to the Republican Party since the 1970s due to the Democratic Party’s substantial political shift on cultural problems.

Third-Party & Independent Presidential Candidates

Independent and third-party candidates have also declared their candidacies for president. They consist of Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Before giving up in April 2024, centrist political group No Labels had planned to complete a third-party “unity ticket.”

While the Green Party has started its primary, several well-known third parties, including the Prohibition Party, The Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, the American Solidarity Party, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, have announced their presidential nominees.

As of April 2024, third-party candidates have seen the best polling season since Ross Perot in the 1990s. Despite this, independent and third-party candidates often perform better in polls than in actual elections.

Presidential Election: Campaign Issues That Can Affect US Election Odds

Abortion

It is anticipated that access to abortion will be a major focus of the campaign. This is the first presidential election to take place following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling. During this, the US Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade and gave the states complete control over abortion laws, including prohibitions on the procedure.

In the Dobbs case, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett voted to overrule the federal right to abortion. All three justices were nominated by former President Donald Trump. Republicans generally support severely limiting the legality of abortion, while Democrats primarily support seeing access to abortion as a right.

By April 2023, nearly all Republican-controlled states had outlawed abortion, making it illegal in most of the country. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that 15 states have strict abortion laws. These laws do not allow exceptions for rape or incest.

While praising Republicans who advocate for outright abortion restrictions, Trump has taken credit for overturning the Roe decision. Trump has stated that red states can monitor pregnant women and indict those who choose to have an abortion, but he will leave the decision about abortion up to the states.

Foreign Policy

The Israel-Hamas conflict and the current Russian invasion of Ukraine are predicted to be major election issues. In addition to emphasising its isolationist “America First” foreign policy, Trump’s 2024 campaign pledged to reevaluate NATO. The campaign plans to shift NATO’s defense responsibilities from Europe to Asia.

According to Trump, Russia can “do whatever they desire” to nations that did not make enough contributions to NATO. Trump has threatened to immediately stop providing aid to Ukraine if reelected.

Trump has hinted at accepting Russia’s annexation of Crimea. He suggested that giving Russia part of eastern Ukraine could have avoided the conflict.

In summary, Vice President Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee for the US presidency in 2024, following the withdrawal of current President Joe Biden on November 5. With Senator JD Vance as his running mate, former President Donald Trump is a Republican seeking a non-consecutive second term while contending with numerous legal problems and an alleged assassination.

Among the third-party contenders are Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. Abortion rights, which will be impacted by the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, and foreign policy issues, particularly those pertaining to NATO and the situation in Ukraine, are significant campaign issues.