Nikki Haley is vying to defeat frontrunner Donald Trump for the Republican nomination to take on President Joe Biden in the 2024 election.
WHO’S STILL IN THE RUNNING FOR THE WHITE HOUSE IN 2024?
REPUBLICAN PARTY
DONALD TRUMP – Trump has embraced his indictments in four criminal cases – unprecedented for a former American president – and leveraged them to boost his popularity among Republicans, making him the Republican frontrunner with 49 per cent in Reuters/Ipsos polling. He won the party’s first nominating contest in Iowa, taking more than half the votes. Trump, 77, has called the indictments a political witch hunt to thwart his pursuit of a second four-year term. If elected, Trump has vowed revenge against his perceived enemies and has adopted increasingly authoritarian language, including saying he would not be a dictator except “on day one”.
NIKKI HALEY – A former South Carolina governor and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Haley, 52, has emphasised her relative youth compared with President Joe Biden, 81, and Trump, as well as her background as the daughter of Indian immigrants. Haley has gained a reputation in the Republican Party as a solid conservative who can credibly address issues of gender and race. She has also pitched herself as a stalwart defender of American interests abroad, and has argued Trump’s management style is too chaotic and divisive to be effective. She earned 12 per cent support among Republicans, according to Reuters/Ipsos and placed third in Iowa behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who dropped out.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY
JOE BIDEN – Biden, already the oldest US president ever, will have to convince voters he has the stamina for another four years in office, amid concerns about his age and poor approval ratings. The most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll put him at 35 per cent, the same level of support as Trump. In announcing his candidacy, Biden declared it was his job to defend American democracy, and referred to the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters. Vice-President Kamala Harris is again his running mate. The economy will factor in his re-election campaign. While the US escaped an anticipated recession and is growing faster than economists expected, inflation hit 40-year highs in 2022 and the cost of food and gas is weighing on voters.
DEAN PHILLIPS – Dean Phillips, a little-known US congressman from Minnesota, announced a long-shot challenge to Biden because he does not believe the president can win another term. The 55-year-old millionaire businessman and gelato company co-founder promises “to repair this economy, and we are going to repair America”.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON – Author and self-help guru Marianne Williamson, 71, has launched her second, long-shot bid for the White House on a platform of “justice and love”. She ran as a Democrat in the 2020 presidential primary but dropped out before any votes had been cast.
THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATES
ROBERT F KENNEDY JR – Robert F Kennedy Jr, 70, is running as an independent after initially challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination.
CORNEL WEST – The political activist, philosopher and academic, 70, initially ran as a Green Party candidate. He has promised to end poverty and guarantee housing.
JILL STEIN – The environmental activist, 73, whose 2016 third-party presidential bid was blamed by Democrats for helping Trump win the White House, is making another run for the nation’s highest office.
WHO’S DROPPED OUT
Republicans no longer in the running include Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former vice-president Mike Pence, senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
