It’s been almost four years since Biden entered the White House in Washington, Dc. The presidential contestant list was long and lengthy then with many Republicans and Democrats fighting to be the voice of America, but now it is even longer. Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have dominated the early Republican race early. President Joe Biden faces a couple of challengers but is expected to secure his party’s nomination. There’s one party that only has one candidate, but could he be the change we need?

The 2024 election will be on November 5, 2024. Registration to vote is currently going on now. Click here to see when the registration deadline is in your state.

Here’s a look at the candidates competing:

DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Joesph R. Biden

Joseph Biden currently serves as the 47th President of the United States. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania Joseph Biden served and represented the state of Deleware for 36 years. He was the youngest person ever selected to serve in the Senate at the age of 29. As a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years, Biden played a large role in shaping U.S. Foreign Policy. According to Whitehouse.gov, he was a pivotal player in issues and legislation related to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, post-Cold War Europe, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia, and ending apartheid.

As the 2024 focus, Biden has chosen to keep a campaign focus on abortion rights.

“I think it’ll continue to be a really galvanizing issue, and we’ll continue to find ways to make it front and center,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez told POLITICO.”  According to reports the campaign feels that abortion rights will increase as more Republican-led states pass anti-abortion laws and news headlines showcase problems arising from the restrictions. The Biden campaign took advantage of the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that ended a constitutional right to the procedure.

Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson is another presidential candidate. She is an author, political activist, and spiritual thought leader. According to her bio, she has been a  leader in spiritual and religious circles. Williamson is the author of 15 books, four of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers. In 1989, she founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit organization that has delivered more than 16 million meals to ill and dying homebound patients. The group was created to help people suffering from the ravages of HIV/AIDS.

She has also worked throughout her career on poverty, anti-hunger, and racial reconciliation issues. In 2004, she co-founded The Peace Alliance and supports the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace. Williamson ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. She is back to give it another try in 2024.

Some issues Williamson has a current focus on include Animal Protection, Children, Climate, Crime Prevention, Criminal Justice, Disability Justice, Economy, Education, Food and Gun Safety, Health, Immigration Justice, Labor, LGBTQIA+, incarceration, Native American Justice, Pandemic & Long Covid Response, Peace, Poverty, Reparations, Reproductive justice, Social Security, Student Plan, and Women’s Rights.

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the son of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. He is also the nephew of America’s 35th President, John F. Kennedy. Yes. these are the same Kennedys who were assassinated. JFK in 1963 and RFK, Sr. in the 1968 Presidential campaign. According to reports RFK, Jr. has carried his own path while continuing the legacy of public service by devoting himself to enviRFKronmental causes and children’s welfare.

He is the founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance, the world’s largest clean water advocacy group. He has served as its longtime chairman and attorney. Kennedy Jr. has also served as chairman and chief litigation counsel in Children’s Health Defense campaign to address childhood chronic disease and toxic exposures, which he founded.

According to RFK, Jr campaign, TIME Magazine named Kennedy its “Hero for the Planet” for his leadership in the fight to restore the Hudson River. The achievement helped spawn more than 300 Waterkeeper organizations across the globe. The New York City watershed agreement, which he negotiated on behalf of environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers, is regarded as an international model in stakeholder consensus negotiations and sustainable development.

Most recently, Kennedy was on the trial team in the landmark victories against Monsanto in 2018, and against DuPont in 2019. In addition to his environmental work, he has represented Indigenous groups asserting legal and treaty rights across Latin America and Canada.

Kennedy is also an award-winning writer whose articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

As a presidential candidate, his priorities for the 2024 Campaign include Honest Government, Reconciliation, Environment, Revitalization, Peace, and Civil Liberties.

THIRD-PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Cornel West

Dr. Cornel West, was a surprise presidential candidate. He is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. West known to many as Brother West, is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. Dr. West teaches on the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as courses in Philosophy of Religion, African American Critical Thought, and a wide range of subjects.

According to his campaign, Dr. West is the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton.

He has written 20 books and has edited 13.

Research says West describes himself as a “non-Marxist socialist” because he does not view Marxism and Christianity as reconcilable.

On June 5, 2023, West announced he would be in the 2024 presidential election under the People’s Party. Some U.S. House Representatives say his campaign would “ultimately help” Joe Biden.

West will center his campaign running on a ticket centered around universal healthcare, public housing, environmental justice, and raising the minimum wage.

REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Donald J. Trump

As the 45th president, Donald John Trump was born in Queens, New York, on June 14, 1946. In 1971, he took over his father’s real estate company, renaming it the Trump Organization. The business soon became involved in a variety of projects, including hotels, resorts, residential and commercial buildings, casinos, and golf courses. His first of many books was The Art of the Deal, published in 1987. In 2004, he launched the reality television show The Apprentice.

During the 2016 primary, Trump defeated more than a dozen rivals to win the Republican nomination. While he lost the popular vote, Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the general election by winning a majority of Electoral College votes. His campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again.”

On January 13, 2021, Trump’s actions resulted in the House of Representatives approving another article of impeachment: the incitement of insurrection. He is the only president in American history to be impeached twice by Congress.

Despite being embroiled in several legal wrangles that could ultimately land him in jail, Donald Trump has a comfortable lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

While Trump is a serious contender for the 2024 election, he faces a federal indictment on charges stemming from his alleged removal of classified documents from the White House and taking them to his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges and claimed they were without merit and said it was an effort of the Biden administration to interfere with his 2024 candidacy.

The former president has claimed his possession of the classified documents is protected by statutes under the Presidential Records Act 1978.

He also claimed the attorneys for former President Bill Clinton invoked a 2012 lawsuit pursuing records of sensitive phone calls Clinton made that were found in his sock drawer.

But legal experts have disputed his claim and said it bore no resemblance to the current charges against Trump.

Biden and Trump are also very close in polling, being separated by 1 to 3 percentage points with the exception of a Jun 23-26 Premise poll that had Trump ahead by 7 and a June 24-27 YouGov survey that had the former president ahead by 4 percentage points.

Will Hurd

William Hurd was born in San Antonio, Texas.  In 1999 Will started his leadership at Texas A&M University leading the Aggies through one of the most difficult times when the Aggie Bonfire Collapsed killing 12 students.

For two decades William Hurd has been involved in the most pressing national security issues challenging the country, whether in the back alleys of dangerous places, boardrooms of top international businesses, or the halls of Congress.

Will is currently a managing director at Allen & Company, a board member for OpenAI, and a trustee of the German Marshall Fund.

He believes politics is about the people. For the 2024 election, presidential candidate Will, will focus on New Family Values, Technology, Education, Jobs, The Economy, USA Foreign Policy, and leadership.

Francis Suarez

The first major Hispanic presidential candidate to enter the Republican race is Francis Suarez. Suarez is the son of former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez, who was initially elected in 2017. He was re-elected in 2021 and serves as the president of the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors. As mayor, Suarez has sought to bring a new era of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship to his city. He is known to include industries such as cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. He has advocated making Miami the new Silicon Valley and even invited Elon Musk to move Twitter headquarters to the city.

Francis is a real estate agent known for attracting large technology investors to Flordia. He is also known for reducing crime, and climate change, and playing a role in influencing the Hispanic Vote.

As an underdog in the primary, Suarez also served as a Miami city commissioner for eight years. Suarez recently came under fire after a Miami Herald investigation alleged that he helped a development company that pays him $10,000 a month to navigate permit issues.

It is reported Suarez has called for the next president to have a “positive” vision for the future, saying current candidates gave voters “a lot of negativity, a lot of divisiveness.”

Chris Christie

Chris Christie former two-term New Jersey governor, a 2016 presidential candidate, and former Trump adviser. He is accused of going after Trump when announcing his presidential campaign on June 6 in New Hampshire, calling the former president a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog” and arguing that he’s the only one who can stop him.

The lawyer, political analyst, lobbyist, and former federal prosecutor served as the 55th governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018. Christie, who was born in Newark, New Jersey, was raised in Livingston, New Jersey.

Christie plans to focus on abortions, entitlements, immigration, guns, and Ukraine. 

 

Larry Elder

Larry Elder is a conservative talk radio host from South Central Los Angeles. His daily radio program, “The Larry Elder Show,” was heard every weekday in all 50 states and on more than 300 stations. Elder is a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and well-known media figure.

In his words: “The question is not which party has my back, but which party can get government off our backs o that we might all realize our God-given capabilities.”

His father was born in Athens, Georgia, served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, and moved to California to open his own restaurant called Elder’s Snack Bar. Larry’s mother, originally from Huntsville, Alabama, was a clerical worker for the U.S. Department of War (now the U.S. Department of Defense) and later raised three boys as a stay-at-home mom.

After running for Governor of California in 2021 and securing millions of votes, according to Elder’s campaign, Larry is now ready for the next step in his journey: running as a presidential candidate.

He plans to prioritize crime, school choice, racial harmony, inflation, economic growth, restore America’s cities, China, and secure the border. 

Doug Burgum

Doug Burgum, a two-term North Dakota governor announced his candidacy on June 7 in Fargo. Burgum is a former businessman who is experienced in energy policy. Years ago turned a small software company into a $1.1 billion deal with Microsoft. Burgum tells the media he has “small-town values” who can help steer the country in a different direction.

Burgum plans to focus on traditional pro-business and pre-Trump GOP issues: the economy, energy, and national security. He sees a path for himself by avoiding the culture wars that Trump and DeSantis have embraced.

Asa Hutchinson

He announced his campaign shortly after Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York and has called for the former president to drop out of the race, saying, “The office is more important than any individual person.”

According to his campaign, as a governor Hutchinson secured over $700 million per year in tax cuts, safeguarded the retirement pay of veterans from state income tax, shrunk the size of state government, created over 100,000 new jobs, and led a national initiative to increase computer science education. President Ronald Reagan appointed him as the youngest U.S. Attorney in the nation for the Western District of Arkansas. In 1996, he won the first of three consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

​During his third term, President George W. Bush appointed Governor Hutchinson to serve as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration and later as the nation’s first Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Border Protection.

​January 10, 2023, marked the end of Governor Hutchinson’s second term. 

Hutchinson will focus on American Energy, Border Security, National Defense, Taxes, Unity, China, Religious Liberty, Building America, Healthcare, Russia, and Criminal Justice.

Perry Johnson

Perry Johnson is a businessman, problem solver, quality expert, and now presidential candidate from the state of Michigan.

Inspired by the quality and consistency of the Japanese in the 1980s, Johnson says “The Japanese were kicking our butts in the auto industry” Their cars had better quality, and consistency, and Detroit was in trouble,” Johnson continued to say in his campaign. Perry wrote a book about quality control helping to bring back America in the auto industry.

Johnson launched his campaign on March 3. The businessman tried to run for Michigan governor in 2022 but didn’t make the ballot after the state’s elections bureau determined his campaign filed thousands of fraudulent nominating signatures. He ran an ad during this year’s Super Bowl targeting voters in Iowa, the first state to vote on the GOP presidential field.

According to Johnson’s campaign, Johnson’s Two-Cents Plan to Save America will lower inflation, give our economy a much-needed boost, allow us to lower taxes, and give Americans the ability to live again.

Johnson is focused on issues such as his two cents plan, inflation, energy, border security, the fentanyl crisis, social security, medicare, simplifying the tax code, national security, education, the Department of Justice, and the FBI.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ramaswamy graduated summa cum laude in Biology from Harvard and received his J.D. from Yale Law School. He then started a biotech company, Roivant Sciences. There, he oversaw the development of five drugs that went on to become FDA-approved.

The son of Indian immigrants founded Strive in 2022. Strive is an Ohio-based asset management firm that directly competes with asset managers like BlackRock. The wealthy biotech entrepreneur and author of “Woke, Inc.” has gained stature in conservative circles for his criticism of the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement that promotes socially responsible investing. He has largely self-funded his campaign so far.

According to his campaign, Politico has called him one of the “intellectual godfathers of the anti-woke movement.”

Nikki Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina in 1972.

In 2004, Haley ran for the South Carolina State House and won. In the state legislature, she pushed for tax cuts and transparency when both parties voted to increase their taxpayer-funded benefits. According to the campaign’s site as retaliation, the Republican leadership blackballed Haley, removed her from her committee assignments, and attempted to end her career.

In 2010, Haley was elected the 116th governor of South Carolina. She was the youngest governor in the country and the first minority female governor in America. During Haley’s time as a Governor, South Carolina was a national economic leader. Known as the “Beast of the Southeast,” the state’s unemployment rate hit a 15-year low. it saw over $20 million in new capital investment and its administration announced new jobs in every county in the state.

She passed ethics reform and signed into law a bill that for the first time required lawmakers to put their votes “on the record”. She signed a charter school bill that expanded school choice. Haley was reelected in 2014. Two years later, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In 2016, President Donald Trump nominated Governor Haley to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. In that role, she also served as a member of the President’s Cabinet and on the National Security Council.

Haley will focus on abortion, immigration, Medicaid, Medicare, and taxes.

Tim Scott

Senator Tim Scott has served the people of South Carolina as their U.S. Senator since 2013. Scott was raised in North Charleston, South Carolina. The South Carolina senator launched his campaign on May 22 in his hometown of North Charleston.

Tim strives to protect the unborn and advance opportunity and education for families. According to his campaign website his legislation, Opportunity Zones, has infused $75 billion of private investments into communities.

As the Senate’s sole Black Republican, Scott has rejected the notion that the country is inherently racist. He also repudiated the teaching of critical race theory.

Scott will focus on issues such as Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, Pain-Capable Unborn Child. More issues include Protection Act, and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

Mike Pence

Mike Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana. After graduating college Vice President Pence practiced law. Pence led the Indiana Policy Review Foundation. He began hosting The Mike Pence Show, a syndicated talk radio show and a weekly television public affairs program. Pence represented East-Central Indiana in Congress six times.

As Governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence increased school funding, expanded school choice, and created the first state-funded Pre-K plan.  According to his bio, he made career and technical education a priority in every high school.

Under Vice President Pence’s leadership, Indiana, “The Crossroads of America,” invested more than $800 million in roads and bridges. The 48th vice president opened his White House bid on June 7 in Iowa.

Pence has argued that cuts to Social Security and Medicare must be on the table for 2024. He blasts those who have questioned why the U.S. should continue to send aid to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression.

UPCOMING DEBATES

Republicans will hold a presidential debate on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a second debate the following night if needed. As of May 16, 2023, reports from Ballotpedia say the Democratic Party does not plan to hold primary debates.