The Republican presidential candidates are all vying to take on President Joe Biden in November 2024. But first, they’re competing in the GOP primaries and caucuses, which begin in January, to emerge as the party’s nominee. The candidates are listed below in order of where they fall in CNN’s Poll of Polls, which is an average of the four most recent nonpartisan, national surveys of either potential or likely 2024 Republican primary voters that meet CNN’s standards. Candidates who don’t feature in CNN’s candidate Poll of Polls are listed alphabetically after those who do.
Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump launched his bid to reclaim the White House in November 2022, aiming to become only the second commander-in-chief to win two nonconsecutive terms.
Trump continues to deny the outcome of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and promotes baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud. He was twice impeached by the US House of Representatives, including for his role in inciting the deadly January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol following his electoral defeat. As of August 2023, Trump faces 91 criminal charges across four separate cases against him, including over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result and his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office.
If he wins another term, Trump has said he would overhaul key factions of the federal government and slash social safety net programs. He has also vowed retribution against his political opponents and has said he would appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.
Trump was born in New York City and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in economics. Before launching his successful 2016 presidential bid, Trump was a real estate developer and businessman and later a reality television star as host of “The Apprentice.” He has five children and is married to Melania Trump.
Ron DeSantis
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose penchant for cultural clashes led him to declare his state as the place where “woke goes to die,” launched a bid for president in May 2023. DeSantis has said he is running to “reverse the decline” in America and to offer a new generation of leadership for the country.
A hard-charging leader who has stretched the boundaries of executive power in his state, DeSantis rose to national prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic. He made Florida one of the first states to reopen schools, and took measures to prohibit lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine requirements.
Prior to the governor’s mansion, DeSantis represented a northeast Florida’s district in the US House from 2013 to 2018 and was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus. He was a vociferous defender of Trump as a congressman, but the two have since traded sharp attacks on each other on the campaign trail.
DeSantis grew up in Dunedin, Florida, and graduated from Yale University, where he was captain of the varsity baseball team before heading to Harvard Law School. He served as a JAG officer in the US Navy. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, have three children.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Tech entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy launched his outsider campaign for the presidency in February 2023, focused on combatting “woke” ideology, exposing government corruption and ushering in a younger generation of voters into the Republican Party.
Ramaswamy, 38, is the youngest candidate in the GOP field. He found success in the private sector after founding Roivant Sciences, a biotechnology firm, before founding Strive Asset Management, an investment management firm that specialized in “anti-woke” asset management, refusing to consider environmental, social and corporate governance, or ESG, factors when investing. He is the author of “Woke Inc.” and “Nation of Victims.”
Ramaswamy grew up in Cincinnati, the son of Indian immigrants. A practicing Hindu, he attended a Catholic high school in Cincinnati before graduating from Harvard University with a biology degree and earning a law degree from Yale University. His wife, Apoorva, is a physician specializing in otolaryngology, and they have two sons.
Mike Pence
Former Vice President Mike Pence is running as a traditional conservative, seeking to manage the US debt, shrink the federal government, increase domestic energy production and maintain support for US allies abroad. He has been outspoken about his Christian faith and his opposition to abortion and gender-transition treatment for minors.
Pence launched his campaign for the GOP nomination in June 2023, offering an implicit criticism of primary rival and former boss Donald Trump, who he said “should never” be president again for his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election. The two fell out after Pence rejected Trump’s entreaties for him to overturn the election result on January 6, 2021, in his capacity as vice president overseeing Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
A former talk radio host, Pence served six terms as a US congressman before being elected Indiana’s 50th governor in 2012. He left in 2017 when he became vice president. The Columbus, Indiana, native graduated from Hanover College and Indiana University School of Law. He and his wife, Karen, have three children.
Nikki Haley
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley launched her presidential campaign in February 2023, calling for a new generation of leadership in the Republican Party. Her campaign has heavily focused on economic responsibility, national security and strengthening the southern border.
If successful in the primary, Haley would be the first woman and the first Asian American nominated by the GOP for president. She was first elected to the South Carolina House in 2004, and six years later, she became the first woman elected governor of the Palmetto State and the youngest governor in the nation when she took office in 2011. She resigned in the middle of her second term in 2017 to become US ambassador to the United Nations under President Donald Trump, now a rival for the 2024 GOP nomination. She served in that role until the end of 2018.
Haley was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina, to Indian immigrants. She attended Clemson University, where she met her husband, Michael Haley. He served in Afghanistan as part of the South Carolina Army National Guard in 2013, making Haley the first governor in US history to have her spouse deployed. He is currently deployed overseas for a yearlong mission. The Haleys have two children.
Tim Scott
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, entered the presidential race in May 2023, touting himself as a principled conservative with a distinctively hopeful and optimistic message.
Scott began his political career with his election to the Charleston City Council in 1994. He later served a term in the South Carolina House before being elected to the US House in 2010. In 2013, then-Gov. Nikki Haley, now a rival for the GOP presidential nomination, appointed him to fill a vacant Senate seat, making him the first Black person to represent the Palmetto State in the Senate.
Scott was born in North Charleston and raised in a working-class home by his mother, who worked as a nurse’s assistant to support Scott and his older brother. A devout Christian, he attended Presbyterian College on a partial football scholarship before graduating from Charleston Southern University with a degree in political science. Scott is unmarried.
Chris Christie
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced his second presidential campaign in June 2023 at a town hall in New Hampshire, drawing stark contrasts with former President Donald Trump. On the campaign trail, Christie has touted his willingness to take on Trump directly, repeatedly hitting the GOP front-runner on his looming legal troubles and foreign policy, among other key issues.
Christie previously endorsed Trump after dropping out of the 2016 GOP primary and served as a close adviser to the then-president during his 2020 reelection campaign. He became one of Trump’s most vocal Republican critics after the former president’s false statements about the 2020 election and his subsequent attempts to overturn the results.
Christie was elected governor of the Garden State in 2009, beating Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine. He served two terms and left office in 2018 after weathering the so-called Bridgegate scandal and a 2017 state government shutdown. He also served as US attorney for New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, under President George W. Bush, earning a reputation for being tough on corruption.
Christie graduated from the University of Delaware in 1984, and later earned his law degree from Seton Hall University in 1987. He has been married to his wife, Mary Pat, since 1986. The couple has four children.
Doug Burgum
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who launched his bid for the presidency in June 2023, has made the economy, energy and national security the focus of his campaign. He wants to lower inflation, push the US to be energy independent and secure the southern US border.
Burgum was first elected North Dakota’s governor in 2016 – running as an outsider, he defeated the incumbent attorney general in the GOP primary. He was easily reelected in 2020. Before entering politics, Burgum started a software company that was later acquired by Microsoft, where he worked as an executive. He also founded a real estate development firm and co-founded a venture capital firm.
Born in Arthur, North Dakota, Burgum graduated from North Dakota State University and got his MBA from Stanford University. Burgum married his wife, Kathryn, in 2016. He has three children from a prior marriage.
Asa Hutchinson
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson left office in January 2023 after two terms and announced his presidential campaign a few months later in April, seeking to “appeal to the best of America.”
He calls for cutting federal spending and workforce, strong border security, reforms to federal law enforcement. He supports Ukraine in its war against Russia and is against American isolationism.
Hutchinson is one of the few candidates who has been strongly critical of Donald Trump, calling on the former president to drop out over his legal troubles. Hutchinson’s extensive political career includes serving as a federal prosecutor under Ronald Reagan, a thrice-elected US congressman and the nation’s top drug czar and a Homeland Security undersecretary in the George W. Bush administration.
A native of Bentonville, Arkansas, Hutchinson graduated from Bob Jones University and the University of Arkansas School of Law. He and his wife, Susan, have four children.
Larry Elder
Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in April 2023, pointing to securing the border and combating criticism that the United States is systemically racist among his reasons for running. His campaign has also raised topics such as school choice, limiting federal spending and countering the “epidemic of fatherlessness.”
Elder was the top Republican opponent to California Gov. Gavin Newsom during the unsuccessful effort to recall the Democratic leader in 2021. He has spent the past few decades in the media industry, writing multiple books and hosting TV shows. He began hosting his radio show, “The Larry Elder Show,” in 1993. Elder also practiced law and went on to start his own legal recruitment firm, Laurence A. Elder & Associates, which he owned for 15 years.
He was born in Los Angeles. His father served in the US Marine Corps while his mother was a clerical worker for the US Department of War during World War II. Elder graduated from Brown University with a degree in political science and from the University of Michigan School of Law. He is unmarried.
Will Hurd
Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd of Texas entered the race for Republican presidential nomination in June 2023 as an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump.
Hurd said he was running because the US needs “commonsense leadership” to tackle “generational-defining challenges,” including inflation, China’s global influence, artificial intelligence and children’s low scores in math, science and reading.
Hurd served three terms in Congress, from 2015 to 2021, representing a swing district in Texas that covered the largest stretch of the US-Mexico border of any congressional seat. He was the only Black Republican in the US House when he announced he would not seek reelection in 2020.
Before entering politics, Hurd served in the CIA for almost a decade, including working as an undercover officer in Afghanistan, and also worked at a cybersecurity firm. He was born in San Antonio and is a graduate of Texas A&M University. He is married to Lynlie Wallace Hurd.
Perry Johnson
Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, who built a personal fortune through his company that certified whether businesses had met industrial standards, launched his presidential bid in March hours after appearing onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Johnson is relatively new to politics. He ran for Michigan governor in 2022 but was kept off the ballot after the state’s elections bureau determined his campaign had submitted thousands of invalid signatures on his nominating petition and did not meet the minimum to qualify.
As a presidential candidate, Johnson has pitched himself as Donald Trump “without the baggage,” drawing parallels between his business career and the former president’s. He is the author of the book “Two Cents to Save America,” a proposal to slash US discretionary spending by 2% per year that Johnson has placed at the center of his presidential bid.
An Illinois native, Johnson graduated from the University of Illinois with a mathematics degree. He is married to Diana Johnson and has three sons.
Former candidates
Francis Suarez
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is serving his second term leading Florida’s second-most populous city, ended his bid for the White House in August 2023, shortly after failing to qualify for the first Republican presidential debate.
Suarez had entered the presidential race in June 2023, urging Republicans to unify and evoking Ronald Reagan’s call for the party to rebuild its “big tent” coalition.
The only high-profile Hispanic candidate in the GOP primary, Suarez had been aiming to connect with segments of the country that he said Republicans have historically lost, such as young and urban voters, Latinos and suburban women. As mayor, Suarez has promoted industries such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency and has advocated making Miami the new Silicon Valley. He has also spoken about combating climate change.
Suarez was first elected mayor in 2017 — the first to be born in Miami. He served as a Miami city commissioner for eight years prior to being elected mayor. His parents were Cuban immigrants, and his father, Xavier, was Miami’s first Cuban American mayor.
Suarez graduated from Florida International University and the University of Florida law school. He and his wife, Gloria Fonts Suarez, have two children.
https://edition.cnn.com/election/2024/presidential-candidates
