Announced bid
Haley
Trump
The incumbent
Biden
Potential candidates
Cheney
Christie
DeSantis
Hogan
Hutchinson
Noem
Pence
Pompeo
Scott
Sununu
Youngkin
Two Republicans have officially declared they are running for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination: former president Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, who was governor of South Carolina before serving as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. Plenty of others are making moves toward getting in the race, as Trump struggles to consolidate the support he once enjoyed in the GOP.
How early do candidates for president announce?
Sources: Smart Politics and Post reporting
The Republicans are focusing much of their criticism on President Biden, who has said he intends to run for reelection, as prominent Democrats have shown little interest in challenging him for their party’s nomination. Here’s a look at the potential field.
The incumbent
President of the United States
Biden has yet to officially announce he is running but has said that “it’s my intention” to seek a second term. He previewed his potential reelection pitch in his State of the Union address this month, touting legislation on infrastructure and prescription drug prices that he passed with a Democratic-controlled Congress. He zeroed in on proposals from some in the GOP to cut Social Security and Medicare spending, an idea that top Republicans in Congress have also tried to tamp down.
A recent Post-ABC poll found that among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 58 percent would prefer someone other than Biden as their nominee in 2024. He would be the oldest president to seek a second term and once campaigned in 2020 as a “bridge” to other leaders. But major Democratic leaders have not taken steps to challenge him — though Marianne Williamson, who ran as a longshot Democratic candidate in 2020, is considering another presidential run.
The polling leaders
Donald Trump
Announced ✓
Former president of the United States
Trump got an early start, announcing his third White House bid in mid-November from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., and declaring, “This comeback starts right now.” But that launch hardly cleared the field. The first weeks of his official campaign were dominated by backlash to his impromptu dinner with the rapper Ye and the far-right activist Nick Fuentes, who have both made antisemitic comments.
Saddled with legal investigations and increasingly criticized by prominent members of his own party, the former president has said he wants to recapture the underdog vibe that helped him take the GOP by storm in 2016.
Trump spoke last month at the annual meeting of the New Hampshire GOP and then flew to South Carolina for his first campaign event since his launch, featuring Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R) and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R). Trump allies scrambled to line up support for the event in Columbia, S.C., a smaller gathering than the massive rallies he regularly held in past campaigns. He continues to claims falsely that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even as he vows a campaign “about the future” and rolls out policy proposals.
Ron DeSantis has dodged questions about his 2024 intentions — but behind the scenes, the Florida governor’s advisers are meeting to prepare for a potential presidential run, according to two Republicans familiar with the conversations who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
DeSantis built national name recognition — and drew national criticism — while opposing coronavirus restrictions; pushing to restrict school discussions of race, sexuality and gender; and denouncing “wokeness.” Fresh off a reelection that cemented his GOP star status, DeSantis has continued to roll out policies that play well with the conservative base, sometimes positioning himself to the right of Trump.
The final weekend of February, DeSantis is gathering about 150 donors, lawmakers, conservative influencers and other Republicans for a retreat in Palm Beach, according to a person familiar with the plans. And he plans to travel the country after the release of his book on Feb. 28, with early stops at fundraisers in Texas and California.
The former Trump administration officials
Former ambassador to the United Nations
Haley, the former South Carolina governor who later served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, is officially the first major Republican challenger to Trump. If she wins the GOP nomination, Haley would be the first woman and the first Asian American GOP presidential nominee.
Haley made her announcement in a video, declaring, “It’s time for a new generation of leadership.” The video emphasizes Haley’s gender and her family’s immigrant roots.
She has tried to walk a tightrope as she navigates her relationship with Trump and pursues her own Oval Office ambitions. Though she has at times distanced herself from Trump’s false claims of a stolen election in 2020, and said that his post-election actions “will be judged harshly by history,” she also campaigned with pro-Trump candidates who questioned or denied the results of the 2020 election.
In 2021, Haley said she would not run if Trump decided to do so. But in an interview with Fox News that aired last month, she made clear her thinking had changed, saying that the “survival of America matters, and it’s bigger than one person.”
Former vice president of the United States
Mike Pence has not yet announced a run, but the former vice president has been traveling to key primary states, visiting with Christian conservative leaders and advocating abortion restrictions while highlighting the Trump administration’s role in overturning Roe v. Wade. He released a memoir in the fall. Recently, he said he would decide on whether to run “in the months ahead.”
Pence most famously broke with Trump when he refused to interfere with the certification of Biden’s electoral win on Jan. 6, 2021, leading some in the pro-Trump mob outside the U.S. Capitol that day to chant, “Hang Mike Pence!”
Still, Pence has been restrained in criticism of Trump, simply saying the two may never “see eye-to-eye” over what happened on Jan. 6. In November, Pence issued a rare rebuke of Trump over his dinner with Fuentes and Ye, saying Trump “was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table.”
Former secretary of state, CIA director
Mike Pompeo, who served as the former secretary of state during Trump’s presidency, recently published a book about his time in the Trump administration, in which he lashes out at the media, downplays the consequences of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, and takes shots at Haley.
Pompeo, an ex-member of the U.S. House from Kansas and later the director of the CIA, has said he will decide on whether to run for president “in the next handful of months.” His team has reached out to potential staff members in early primary states.
The governors
Former New Jersey governor
Chris Christie, who was governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018, ran for president in 2016 and has said he is considering a run in 2024. Christie endorsed Trump quickly in 2016 after dropping out of the race and led the former president’s transition team, but he later grew critical of Trump and has made some of the bluntest calls for his party to shift direction.
At a Las Vegas meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in November — effectively a cattle call for potential 2024 candidates — Christie compared politicians’ fear of Trump to their fear of being branded a communist in the 1960s amid “litmus tests based on lies.”
The former governor of Maryland is openly weighing a 2024 run after eight years as the moderate GOP head of a blue state. He left office in January.
Long at odds with Trump and critical of his endorsed candidates in the midterms, Larry Hogan has said he sees new room for critics of the former president in the GOP. His team recently launched a federal political action committee. But many Republicans see a difficult path for candidates such as Hogan, given many GOP primary voters’ desire for someone further to the right.
Asa Hutchinson, who spent eight years as governor of Arkansas and just left office, has hit the trail in Iowa to signal his 2024 ambitions and told NBC News in late January that he is “absolutely” considering a presidential run. He urged Republicans to look past Trump well before the midterms that intensified GOP doubts and in January said the ex-president’s role in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol “disqualifies” him from another term.
Hutchinson and other lesser-known candidates are working to raise their profiles and amass the funds for a grueling campaign. Hutchinson has been talking with donors and gauging his ability to raise the money for what he see as an “endurance race.” On Tuesday, he announced another visit to Iowa.
Kristi L. Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, won reelection to her second term in November and has gained attention within conservative circles for shrugging off restrictions and mandates in her state during the pandemic. She has claimed the state got through the pandemic “better than virtually every other state,” though South Dakota in 2020 had among the highest coronavirus infections and death tolls per capita.
Her team is already watching potential rivals on the national stage, with one adviser contrasting her with DeSantis late last year and a spokesman openly criticizing the Florida governor’s record on abortion. Noem will be in Washington on Wednesday to speak at the America First Policy Institute, discussing China. But it’s not clear Noem will take the plunge for 2024. She recently told CBS News that she’s “not convinced” that she needs to run for president but that she also believes “that this country needs somebody to lead us that has a vision.”
The Republican governor of New Hampshire — a key early primary state — won his fourth term by a 15-point margin in November, and he has signaled interest in a presidential run while drawing contrasts with other contenders such as DeSantis. “I’m No. 1 in personal freedoms. Sorry, Ron, you’re No. 2,” Chris Sununu told Fox News recently, referring to the Florida governor while advocating limited government and criticizing DeSantis’s moves to punish companies he views as “woke.”
A vocal critic of Trump, Sununu roasted the former president at last year’s Gridiron Club dinner as “f—ing crazy.” (But even as Sununu has distanced himself from Trump, he endorsed a candidate for the Senate who helped spread Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.) Sununu recently launched a “Live Free or Die” committee — named for his state’s motto — that can raise unlimited funds and could support a presidential bid.
Glenn Youngkin, the Virginia governor who flipped the office to Republicans in 2021, has repeatedly said he is “humbled” by speculation he may run for president, without committing to anything. The former executive of a private equity firm recently made headlines for rejecting the possibility of a Ford electric battery plant opening in his state; Youngkin cited concerns about the car manufacturer’s work with China, but some critics viewed his objections as political positioning for a potential GOP primary in 2024.
Youngkin is also pushing for further individual and corporate tax cuts in Virginia but is running up against opposition from Democrats, who hold a majority in the state Senate.
Others to watch
The former Wyoming congresswoman has waged a long, lonely battle to steer her party away from Trump, persistently criticizing the former president and warning of the damage he was doing not just to the GOP but also to democracy. For her efforts, Liz Cheney was ousted in 2021 from her position as House conference chair and replaced with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a staunch Trump defender. Cheney would go on to serve as one of two Republicans on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Last year, Cheney lost her primary race in Wyoming to Harriet M. Hageman, another election denier, by a historic margin. Cheney has vowed to do whatever it takes to prevent Trump from reaching the White House again and has not ruled out running for president herself.
Tim Scott, the only Black U.S. senator in the GOP, is seriously considering a presidential run, according to people close to him, and will kick off a “listening tour” in South Carolina this week, one day after the launch event of his fellow South Carolinian, Haley. Scott will then head to Iowa as he lays groundwork for a campaign, including by tapping former Colorado senator Cory Gardner and operative Rob Collins to chair his super PAC, as first reported by Axios.
The lawmaker from South Carolina, a pivotal state in the primaries, hinted at national ambitions after winning reelection in the fall, saying he wished his grandfather had lived to see a second man of color elected president — “but this time let it be a Republican.”
Photo editing by Christine Nguyen. Photos from U.S. Congress, White House, State Department, Getty, Arkansas National Guard, Virginia Office of the Governor, Washington Post, and Associated Press.
