The 2024 Republican presidential primary field has narrowed
The 2024 Republican presidential primary field has narrowed, with Doug Burgum dropping out of the race.
The North Dakota governor qualified for the first two presidential debates but missed the third debate and appeared on the verge of not making the stage for the fourth debate, set for Wednesday in Alabama.
Here’s a look at the candidates still competing for the Republican and Democratic nominations, as well as the third-party contenders:
DONALD TRUMP
The former president announced his third campaign for the White House on Nov. 15, 2022, at his Mar-a-Lago resort, forcing the party to again decide whether to embrace a candidate whose refusal to accept defeat in 2020 sparked the U.S. Capitol attack and still dominates his speeches.
The GOP front-runner remains hugely popular in the Republican Party, despite making history as the first president to be impeached twice and inciting the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Referring to himself as America’s “most pro-life president,” Trump’s three nominations of conservative judges to the Supreme Court paved the way for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which had legalized abortion nationwide for nearly 50 years. Sweeping criminal justice reforms he signed into law in 2019 eased mandatory minimum sentences and gave judges more discretion in sentencing.
In March, Trump became the first former U.S. president to be criminally charged, facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of a hush money scheme. Since then, he has been charged with 57 more felonies in three other criminal cases, accused of mishandling and unlawfully retaining classified documents and trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.
RON DESANTIS
The Florida governor officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign on May 24 in a glitch-marred Twitter announcement.
Heralding his state as a place “where woke goes to die,” DeSantis has framed his campaign around a desire to bring the conservative policies he championed in Florida to the national stage. He has made a name for himself battling with Disney over the entertainment giant’s opposition to a bill dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans instruction or classroom discussion of LGBTQ issues in Florida public schools for all grades.
Under his governorship, the state has also banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and blocked public colleges from using federal or state funding on diversity programs.
NIKKI HALEY
The former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor became the first major GOP challenger to Trump when she kicked off her campaign on Feb. 15 in Charleston. She is the only woman in the GOP field.
The former Trump Cabinet official once said she wouldn’t challenge her former boss for the White House in 2024. But she changed her mind, citing the country’s economic troubles and the need for “generational change,” a nod to the 77-year-old Trump’s age.
