President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in the US presidential election on November 5 in what is likely to be a contentious and close race, with several third-party candidates also running.
The list of candidates is as follows:
Republican
Donald Trump
Trump, 77, became the first former US president to be convicted of a crime on May 30. A Manhattan jury convicted him. He was charged with falsifying documents to conceal payments to silence porn actresses ahead of the 2016 election. He plans to appeal and maintains his innocence. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention, where he will be formally nominated to face Biden, securing enough delegates to set the stage for the first presidential rematch in nearly 70 years.
Trump, who served as president from 2017 to 2021, has used unprecedented legal battles to consolidate his support base and framed his third presidential bid as retaliation against those he viewed as political opponents. But a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 10% of registered Republican voters said they were less likely to vote for Trump after his felony conviction, rising to 25% among registered independents.
Trump faces 54 charges in three criminal cases – a federal lawsuit over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, a Georgia election interference lawsuit and a Florida federal lawsuit over his handling of classified documents after leaving office. He has denied wrongdoing in all cases.
But the hush money trial in New York could be the only one to take place before the Nov. 5 election. Trump has refused to vow to accept the results of the 2020 election or rule out the possibility of violence over the Nov. 5 election or the verdict, and is already preparing to contest his possible election loss. Trump has campaigned using increasingly dystopian rhetoric, calling his supporters jailed for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol “hostages.”
Trump has vowed to take revenge on his political opponents if elected to another four-year term, and said he would not be a dictator except on “day one,” but later called it a joke. He also wants the power to replace federal officials with those he believes are more loyal. On foreign policy, he has said the U.S. will not defend NATO members that do not spend enough on defense and has encouraged Russia to attack them, drawing criticism from Western leaders. He also pressured congressional Republicans to hold off on military aid to Ukraine, but later reversed course.
Trump has made immigration one of the main issues in his domestic election campaign, declaring mass deportations, the use of the National Guard and federal troops, the abolition of birthright citizenship, and the expansion of travel bans from certain countries. He has called some immigrants “animals” and has not ruled out the possibility of building detention camps within the United States. Regarding the issue of abortion, Trump has taken credit for the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and has said abortion should remain a state issue.
While criticizing measures taken by Republican-led states such as Florida and Arizona, Trump said he would allow Republican-led states to track women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate state bans. Trump has said he does not support bans on access to contraception. He has promised to repeal Obamacare's health insurance program, but said in an April 11 video that he will not “repeal” it, and has promised to end federal funding for schools that mandate vaccinations.
He has also vowed to reverse many of the Biden administration's climate change policies. Trump has not yet announced his running mate, but several contenders have emerged, some of whom will attend the trial in New York.
Democratic Party
Joe Biden
Biden launched his 2020 presidential bid as an urgent effort to protect American freedoms and defend democracy, saying Trump threatens the future of American democracy, and he is approaching his reelection bid with a similar approach.
Biden had no significant challenger for the Democratic nomination he won in March. The election in November will be much tougher. In the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, Biden has a national approval rating of 41% and Trump 39%, but Trump leads Biden in most of the battleground states that will decide the outcome of the election. Biden is already the oldest US president in history at 81, but he must convince voters that he is more suitable for the presidency than Trump, who is four years younger than him, and contend with even worse low approval ratings among younger voters.
The economy will also be a big factor in determining whether Biden returns to the White House. The U.S. has emerged from an expected recession and is growing faster than economists expected, but inflation and the price of basic goods are concerns for voters. Biden has pushed a massive economic stimulus and infrastructure spending package to boost U.S. industrial production, but so far it has received little praise from voters.
Biden's campaign has emphasized new semiconductor manufacturing plants, housing projects and other economic measures. Two labor unions, the United Auto Workers and the Construction Tradesmen of North America, have endorsed him. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced a new coalition to win over black voters, a key voting bloc that has historically voted for Democrats but has shown weakness in Biden's candidacy. Biden's handling of immigration policy, which has struggled with millions of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, has drawn criticism from Republicans and some Democrats.
On June 4, he signed an executive order to curb migration along the southern border, denying migrants who cross the border illegally the opportunity to apply for asylum and subjecting them to immediate deportation or return to Mexico. He led the Western response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, persuading allies to punish Russia and support Kiev, and secured more funding in April after a months-long battle with congressional Republicans.
Biden has also offered military aid to Israel in its conflict with Hamas and campaigned for expanding humanitarian aid. But he has faced fierce criticism from many Democrats and younger voters for continuing military aid to Israel and doing little to stop Israeli military attacks in Gaza that have killed more than 36,000 people, including women and children, according to Palestinian health officials. The issue has caused divisions within the party, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. On May 31, Biden unveiled a new plan for Israel, proposing a new Israeli plan. Gaza ceasefire in exchange for hostage releaseHe called on Hamas to agree to the new proposal. “It's time to end this war,” he said.
Marianne Williamson
Less than a month after dropping out, best-selling author and self-help guru Marianne Williamson, 71, has relaunched her 2024 presidential bid, focusing on “justice and love.”
In a statement in February, she said she had previously stopped because she was losing the “race,” but was returning to fight against President Trump's “dark, authoritarian vision.”
Williamson ran as a Democrat in the 2020 presidential primary but withdrew before voting began.
Independent
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy, 70, an anti-vaccination and environmental activist, was originally challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination but is now running as an independent. Though his overall approval rating is low, 10% of respondents in a May Reuters/Ipsos poll backed him, giving him the potential to siphon votes from both Trump and Biden.
Mr Kennedy, the son of Democratic U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while running for president in 1968, has come under fire from prominent family members who have publicly supported Mr Biden. Mr Kennedy, who picked wealthy lawyer Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, is a supporter of Israel and has questioned the six-week ceasefire that Mr Biden supports.
He sees the situation on the southern US border as a humanitarian crisis and has said he opposes Trump's border wall. He has also vowed to repeal parts of Biden's climate change bill because he says it helps the oil industry. Kennedy has a different stance on abortion rights, including restrictions on when women can get an abortion. He told Reuters that all abortions are a “tragedy” but that abortion should be a woman's right.
Trump has been criticized for making false medical claims about vaccines over the years, but he says he still wants to make them available to Americans. He himself suffered from a brain parasite more than a decade ago but made a full recovery, according to his campaign.
Kennedy's campaign has said he is officially running in a few states so far, including California, Michigan and Utah, but running in all 50 states will be an uphill and expensive battle.
Cornel West
A political activist, philosopher and academic, he is running for president as a third party candidate who he believes will best appeal to progressive, Democratic-leaning voters.
West, 71, initially ran as the Green Party candidate but announced in October he would run as an independent, saying “people want better policies than partisan politics.” He has pledged to end poverty and guarantee housing.
Green Party
Jill Stein
Jill Stein, a physician who ran for the Green Party in 2016, plans to run again in 2024.
She kicked off her current campaign by charging that Democrats have “time and time again betrayed their promises to workers, to young people, and to the climate, while Republicans never even made those promises in the first place.”
Stein, 74, raised millions of dollars for a recount after Trump's surprise victory in 2016. Her advocacy led to the only recount of the election, in Wisconsin, which showed Trump won.
Libertarian Party
Chase Oliver
The Libertarian Party invited both Trump and Kennedy to speak at its convention in late May, but ultimately chose Chase Oliver, who ran for Georgia Senate in 2022 and won 2% of the vote.
