US Presidential Election 2024: Dates, candidates and latest issues
economictimes.indiatimes.com
Leading the field of Republican presidential candidates is former President Donald Trump, who faces a battery of federal and state criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
If Trump captures the Republican nomination and wins the general election, he will become the first president in 130 years to win the White House after sitting out a term, after Grover Cleveland.
Biden, the incumbent president, is the presumptive Democratic nominee. He will be 81 when the election is held in November 2024, making him the oldest American ever to win a presidential election should he secure a second term.
THE REPUBLICANS Trump, 77, is dominating a field of 10 major candidates who have largely avoided criticizing him directly for fear of alienating his base of diehard supporters.
His Republican rivals, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, instead have argued that Trump's legal woes will hamstring him in a general-election fight against Biden.
Two notable exceptions are Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who have both been critical of Trump's attempts to subvert the 2020 election outcome.
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a newcomer to politics, is running as an inheritor of Trump's populist, America First agenda, one that is wary of an expansive federal government, corporate power and international alliances.
DeSantis was once viewed as the most likely candidate to deny Trump the nomination, but his campaign has sputtered since launching in May despite having a big war chest. He risks falling into the rest of the pack behind Trump.
