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Former US President Donald Trump at a campaign-style rally in Wellington, Ohio, on 26 June 2021
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As the US gears up for the midterm elections this November, strong personalities within the Republican Party appear to be vying to represent the GOP in 2024.
Ever since former President Donald Trump declared the result of the 2020 election as “stolen”, political pundits have been predicting that he will attempt another Oval Office run. Florida governor Ron DeSantis – described as “Trump 2.0” – has also been tipped as a potential 60th president, along with Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo – all of whom held roles in Trump’s administration.
Polls are currently placing Trump considerably ahead of his potential contenders, but with more than two years to go until the next general election, the race to take the Republican reins remains open. Here are the most likely candidates.
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The United States of America’s 45th president has not formally confirmed whether or not he is running again, but the announcement is more of a matter of when than whether. “In my own mind, I’ve already made that decision,” Trump, 76, told New York Magazine on 11 July.
A member of the congressional committee carrying out televised hearings into the 6 January attack on the Capitol has confirmed that the former president will not “blunt the investigation” if he announces plans to run in 2024, The Guardian reported. “The bottom line is that no one is above the law – whether he’s a president, former president or a potential future presidential candidate”, said Virginia congresswoman and committee member Elaine Luria.
Despite raising $120m in donations in 2021, Trump’s election fundraising “slowed sharply in the first half of the year”, reported The Times. His committee brought in just $17 million between April and June 2022, “down by $2 million on the previous quarter”. The dip could reflect “signs that many Republicans are weary of the chaos that surrounds the former president and his refusal to accept his 2020 defeat”, added the paper.
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Speculation is continuing to mount over whether Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, a punchy populist often “heralded as a more disciplined Trump”, will launch a bid for the White House as soon as this year.
The right-wing 43-year-old represented Florida’s sixth congressional district in the House of Representatives between 2013 and 2018, served in the US Navy and graduated from Harvard Law School before entering politics.
He achieved national fame earlier this year after his comments to reporters about big technology companies censoring conservative figures went viral. In February he made global headlines for a high-profile speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in which he “lambast[ed] Joe Biden, the media and what he termed ‘wokeism’”, reported The Guardian at the time.
Most polls position DeSantis as the second most likely Republican 2024 candidate, after Trump. He is “Trump’s most serious rival at this early stage”, said The Hill, and has a “multilayered appeal” supported by his pushback against mask and vaccine mandates and his advocacy of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
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Former vice president Mike Pence, who served as Indiana governor before Trump selected him as his running mate in 2016, is yet to announce his candidacy. But confirmation that Pence will headline the New Hampshire Institute of Politics’ “Politics and Eggs” speaking series – described by Fox News as “a must stop for presidential candidates and potential White House contenders” – in August has sparked further speculation about “Pence 2024”.
It is more than likely Pence will run; Bloomberg has pointed out that “every vice president from 1953 on has run for president except for three: Spiro Agnew (“who resigned from office in a plea-bargain deal”), Nelson Rockefeller (who “died… before the next presidential election”) and Dick Cheney (“who had health issues, among other things”).
The 63-year-old evangelical Christian was once one of Trump’s most loyal supporters but the pair’s relationship waned in the days leading up to the 6 January Capitol attack and its aftermath. Earlier this year, Pence said his old boss was “wrong” to claim that he could have overturned the results of the 2020 election and described 6 January 2021 as “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol”.
When asked about the possibility of campaigning against his once-loyal former VP during a Fox Business Network interview, Trump “laughed off” the question, said The Independent. “That’s okay if he ran. I mean, I wouldn��t be concerned with that, that’s fine,” he replied.
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Nikki Haley, who served as governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, “can’t decide who she wants to be – the leader of a post-Trump GOP or a ‘friend’ to the president who tried to sabotage democracy”, said Politico. One thing is certain though: she “is going to run for president in 2024”.
The New York Times has described the 50-year-old as “playing a shrewd and careful game” in the eyes of Republicans by seeming to distance herself from Trump “and yet continuing to embrace him at the same time”. After the Capitol attack last year, Haley said she was “disgusted” with her former boss, but has “been trying to get back in his good graces” since then, the paper added.
During a speech at an event organised by Christians United for Israel on 19 July, Haley “effectively announce[d]” that she was running for president in 2024, reported The Times of Israel.
“If this president signs any sort of deal, I’ll make you a promise… the next president will shred it – on her first day in office,” she said, referring to Joe Biden’s attempts to revive the Iran nuclear deal. “Just saying, sometimes it takes a woman,” Haley added, after receiving a round of applause.
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In an interview with The Times published on 16 July, the 58-year-old who served as secretary of state from 2018 until 2021, during Donald Trump’s presidency, said he was prepared to run against his former boss in 2024.
“If we conclude it’s the right place for us to be and we think that this is the right time for us to go serve… we’ll go at it and we’ll go make the case as best we can,” he said, referring to his wife Susan, described by the paper as his “closest advisor”.
Pompeo, who also served as CIA director under Trump, has been described as one of the former president’s “staunchest allies”. Over the years, he has undergone varying levels of scrutiny including “controversy surrounding the impeachment inquiry, the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the coronavirus pandemic [and] the firing of his department's watchdog, Steven Linick”, said Insider.
In recent weeks, following what The Times described as a “Nigel Lawson-style weight loss”, Pompeo has been giving speeches and running advertisements in the early-nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He has also written a book, due in November, called Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love.
*Odds from Paddy Power
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