The next election may be two years away but the Democrats and Republicans are already gearing up for their campaigns ahead of 2024
Although two years away, the next US presidential election is already gearing up – with a range of names already in the mix.
Both Republican and Democrat potential candidates for 2024 are preparing themselves for their shot at the White House.
Joe Biden, the 46th US President, has already announced that he intends to run for his second term – but who will he be running against in the upcoming race?
According to a 2021 CNN poll, only 48 per cent of Democrat voters want President Biden to run for office again – with both his age and current lack in popularity prompting voters to speculate who else could run in the 2024 election.
From rumours about Hillary Clinton making a political comeback, to two of Donald Trump’s former employees potentially launching their own bids, the Republican and Democrat parties could both throw up surprise candidates.
Let’s take a closer look at the format of the US election and potential candidates for 2024.
The American presidential elections are always held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
The next US presidential election will be held on Tuesday November 5, 2024. Under Article II of the US Constitution, each presidential term must last four years.
It will be the 60th quadrennial election and the first one since the 2020 census reapportionment – also known as redistricting.
Redistricting refers to the redrawing of the boundaries of congressional and state legislative districts. Occurring every decade, it happens post-census, to reflect any changes in the population.
Districts can either gain or lose population, altering an individual’s impact electorally. Those in a district with a bigger population have less of a say than a voter in a sparsely populated district.
Each party is set to hold a national convention, with tradition stating that the President party goes second.
The conventions will see delegates of each party select their nominee for president and vice president.
On January 7 2022, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee announced that four potential host cities had been chosen for the 2024 convention: Milwaukee, Nashville, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City.
Milwaukee was the host city for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, with itself and Pittsburgh both located in swing states (Wisconsin and Pennsylvania).
Nashville and Salt Lake City are state capitals of Tennessee and Utah – both of which are traditionally Republican states.
On February 4 2022, Pittsburgh’s committee announced that its bid had been eliminated from further consideration.
Prospective host cities for the 2024 Democrat National Convention also include Milwaukee.
Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee, has said he is open to the city hosting either party’s conventions in 2024.
The American presidential elections are always held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
During the 2020 presidential election, a record number of people cast their ballots by post ahead of election day.
Under the Electoral Count Act, states must finally resolve any issues or controversies over the selected electors of the Electoral College – a body of people representing the US states who formally cast the votes for the election of the president and vice president.
These meetings take place to formally vote for the president and vice president.
The number of states that forbid faithless electors – those that choose to vote for another party than they pledged – is subject to change.
In the 2020 election, 33 states, as well as Washington DC had such laws.
Before a joint session of Congress, all the votes in the 2024 presidential election will be counted, with the president of the senate (presumed to be Vice President Kamala Harris) formally announcing the result.
The president-elect will be formally sworn into office.
Donald Trump has already announced his intention to run in the 2024 election.
The 45th President of the United States will be able to run again as he lost in 2020 – meaning he never served his second term. The law allowing presidents to serve in office no more than twice is stated under the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution.
Should Mr Trump run for his second term, he will most likely need to find a new running mate after he vilified Mike Pence, his vice president, for not trying to overturn the 2020 election result.
Mike Pence is a likely candidate in the Republican party, drawing support from both the Trump base and more traditional conservatives.
During his time in the White House, the 48th vice president pushed for a reduction in government spending, causing him to gain a reputation as a fiscal conservative.
Although known to be one of Mr Trump’s closest allies in the lead up to the 2016 elections, as well as during their time in office together, they clashed during their re-election bid.
According to Chris Galdieri, associate professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, Mr Pence has been spending a lot of time in the state – which is known to be pivotal in the primaries.
Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, has also fuelled speculation that he might run in the 2024 election as he has established a fundraising committee.
Prior to his time in the Trump administration, Mr Pompeo was the director of the CIA under Mr Trump and also a representative for the state of Kansas.
A strong climate change sceptic, Mr Pompeo once described the Paris Climate Accords as one of the "three sins" of the world, along with the World Health Organisation and the Human Rights Council.
During his time as secretary of state, he devoted much of his time to opposing the Chinese Communist Party, as well as holding an aggressive stance on Iran, strongly advocating for the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.
Unlike Mr Pence, Mr Pompeo appeared to support Mr Trump’s claims of election fraud during the transition to the Biden administration.
Both of Donald Trump’s children are potential candidates for the 2024 election.
Ms Trump was one of her father’s closest aides during his presidency, attending G20 meetings and establishing the ‘Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative’ in her capacity as an advisor to the president.
Rumours about the former president’s son running also emerged after he posted a photo of a "Don Jr. 2024" flag on Instagram in October 2020.
The White House has confirmed that President Joe Biden will be running again in the 2024 US election.
President Biden, 79, will be approaching his 82nd birthday on the day of the 2024 elections.
Mr Biden, who served as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years, announced his 2020 White House bid, stating that Donald Trump posed a historic threat to the values of America.
Although he immediately became the front-runner for the 2020 presidential race, Mr Biden’s poll numbers have since dropped during his presidency.
His poll rankings plummeted after America’s chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan, and he has also faced criticism over his handling of Covid-19 in the US.
Vice president Kamala Harris is also an obvious candidate, but her poll ratings have also plunged and are even worse than Joe Biden’s.
Ms Harris was previously a first-term senator for California and made US history by becoming the first female vice president, as well as the highest-ranking female official.
Born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, the 54-year-old former prosecutor would break several barriers if elected president in the 2024 election.
Senator Elizabeth Warren was a front-runner in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election.
Seen as Bernie Sanders’ predominant rival during that election, she is still considered to be a prominent figure in the party today.
During the 2020 presidential race, Ms Warren came under scrutiny with the discovery that she described her race as American Indian on a form to join the Texas legal bar in the 1980s.
She repeatedly apologised, correcting herself and saying the claim was based on "family lore" and that she now understands tribal sovereignty dictates membership.
Ms Warren’s 2020 campaign saw the now 72-year-old make workers’ rights, fair wages and access to healthcare central to her political effort.
Pete Buttigieg first threw his hat into the ring for the White House during the 2020 election, saying America needs a “new generation” of leaders.
He was originally seen as a rank outsider – particularly as he would have become the country’s first openly gay president had he managed to win his party’s nomination and then defeat Donald Trump in 2020.
Buttigieg’s profile has been raised by his appointment as Transportation Secretary, with the 40-year-old being tasked with meeting the Biden administration’s pledge to tackle and improve America’s crumbling infrastructure.
The previously two-term mayor of South Bend, a city of 100,000 people in Indiana, was named by former president Barack Obama on a list of gifted young Democrats, in an interview published in November 2016.
Mr Buttigieg is a Harvard University graduate, Rhodes scholar and former McKinsey consultant who has held no national political office.
In February 2022, Hillary Clinton spoke at the New York State Democratic Party Convention, sparking reports that she could be mounting a political comeback.
Despite winning the popular vote in the 2016 election, she lost the electoral vote and ultimately lost the election against Donald Trump.
The former Democratic presidential nominee, now aged 74, said she would not run for president again – but political experts have not ruled her out of the race for the White House in 2024.
On February 9, the Real Clear Politics average of polls taken over the last month saw Joe Biden’s approval rating sink to 39.8 per cent – lower than Donald Trump at the same stage of his presidency – meaning Ms Clinton’s popularity could be higher than that of the current President’s.
Cory Booker, the senator for New Jersey, is among the group of candidates who have either visited New Hampshire – a prominent state in the primary stages of the US election – or are planning to make the journey.
In the 2020 election, Mr Booker announced his run on the first day of Black History Month, underscoring his status as America’s potential second black president after Barack Obama.
Formerly the mayor of Newark, Mr Booker won a special Senate election in 2013 to replace Democrat Frank Lautenberg – before winning a full Senate term in 2014.
If he does indeed run, the 52-year-old will likely stand alone as an unmarried candidate.
Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar also ran in the 2020 presidential race – and political experts suspect she may run again in 2024.
In a move similar to Cory Booker and other candidates, Ms Klobuchar allegedly plans to return to New Hampshire in March – sparking rumours that she could be a potential candidate for the 2024 election.
She dropped out of the race in 2020 and chose to endorse fellow moderate Joe Biden in an effort to consolidate the party’s centrist base
According to the betting website Paddy Power, the odds of the potential candidates winning the 2024 presidential election are as follows:
Donald Trump – 3/1
Joe Biden – 4/1
Kamala Harris – 5/1
Ron DeSantis – 9/1
Mike Pence – 14/1
Nikki Haley – 16/1
Although he lost the presidential race back in 2020, Donald Trump has better odds to win the election than Joe Biden.
Vice-president Kamala Harris follows him in likelihood of winning, with odds of five to one.
During the election, Americans vote for individual electors in their state who support the candidate they want to become president. This process is called the electoral college.
The larger the demographic of a state, the more electors there are. For example, California has a population of 39.51 million and is currently allocated 55 votes – versus Delaware, with a population of just 973,764, has only three votes.
The candidate with the most electors wins all the state’s electoral college votes. It is the first candidate to win enough states to get to 270 electoral votes who is elected as president.
All 50 US states and Washington DC have a set number of electors in the electoral college, roughly proportional to the size of the state.
Each state gets at least three electoral votes because the amount is equal to its total number of Senators and Representatives in the US Congress. Washington DC also gets three electoral college votes, meaning a total of 538 electors form the Electoral College.
All but two states, Maine and Nebraska, use a winner-takes-all system – which means that if you win the most votes in a state, you can take its entire haul of electoral college votes.
In order to become president, either candidate needs to win a majority of the 538 electors – so 270.
In July 2020, the US Supreme Court ruled that electors must follow the popular vote in states that have passed such a law.
This article is kept updated with the latest information for the 2024 election.
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