The 2024 Republican presidential candidate list continues to grow
While Donald Trump remains the heavy favorite for the GOP nomination, the number of Republicans challenging him continues to grow.
June saw five additional candidates formally enter the race, including Trump’s former vice president, a little-known billionaire governor and the race’s only Hispanic candidate.
There could be more additions in the months to come even with an established leader garnering a majority of GOP support in most polling.
Below is a list of the dozen candidates who are officially in the race.
Donald Trump
Despite being indicted twice in the last three months, most recently on federal charges tied to his mishandling of confidential documents and alleged obstruction of justice, the former president has not seen his standing as Republican frontrunner diminish. (Even in the event that Trump is convicted and sentenced to jail time before the election, there is no law against him continuing his campaign from prison.)
A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released last week found that 48% of GOP voters said they would vote for Trump as nominee, double his nearest competitor. That’s in line with an NBC News poll from Sunday that showed him with 52% of the vote. Trump courted evangelical voters over the weekend by pledging that the federal government should be involved in opposing abortion.
Ron DeSantis
The Florida governor is still holding second place in every survey but has found himself closer to the pack below him than Trump above him as he fails to gain traction after launching his campaign last month with a disastrous Twitter livestream.
While DeSantis was in Texas this weekend touring the border in advance of launching his immigration policy, Politico published a story about his woes in New Hampshire, an early primary where he stumbled into what one GOP consultant called a “stupid” feud with a leading Republican women’s group there.
Perhaps most worrisome for DeSantis is that he isn't scaring other candidates from hopping into the race — or even other Floridians. The New York Times reported last week that Sen. Rick Scott, who served as Florida governor prior to DeSantis, is mulling a presidential bid.
Mike Pence
The former vice president has been a consistent (and distant) third in the last round of polling, hanging in the high single digits. On the weekend that marked the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and restrict abortion access in the country, Pence called on his fellow candidates to support a 15-week federal ban, saying on Fox News that it is a “winning issue” for Republicans despite swing election after swing election and numerous polls suggesting otherwise.
During that same interview, Pence declined to say whether, as president, he would pardon Trump should Trump be convicted.
Chris Christie
Since launching his campaign earlier this month, the former New Jersey governor has spent his time targeting Trump, and was booed for criticizing him at an evangelical conference on Friday. (Christie said later he “expected the boos” but “they need to hear the truth.”) Most recently, the two former allies sparred over each other’s weight.
It marks a major pivot for Christie, who was the first Republican governor to endorse Trump in 2016. Christie has made a small-but-immediate dent in New Hampshire polling, taking third place behind DeSantis in one recent survey.
Nikki Haley
The former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, Haley has criticized her former boss while also saying she was “inclined in favor” of pardoning him if elected.
The only woman in the race, Haley has been elusive on abortion policy, but told an evangelical conference on Friday that she thought there was “a place for a federal law.” Haley has been unable to crack low single digits in polling but did go viral on social media over the weekend for a tweet about how “simple” and “easy” life was while growing up, which caused many to remind Haley of her own fraught stories of growing up as an Indian American in the South.
Doug Burgum
The North Dakota governor hasn’t made a mark in polling but he’s attempting to spend his way into competition, having already matched the outputs of the main super-PACs supporting Trump and DeSantis since entering the race on June 7, per a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Burgum’s campaign has already spent $3 million, some of it self-funded from the two-term governor whose estimated net worth is over a billion dollars. While Burgum has presented himself as a pro-business Republican, he’s ticked many of the same cultural boxes as DeSantis, signing strict abortion restrictions and a ban on gender-affirming care for those under 18.
Tim Scott
Scott — the only Black Republican in the Senate — and groups supporting him have been big spenders so far in the primary, coming in fourth behind Trump, DeSantis and Burgum. Scott has had a focus on Iowa, where he’s gaining some ground, although he hasn’t shown movement in the national polls.
As Scott campaigns in the Hawkeye State, Axios reported Sunday his absence has made it easier for Democrats to confirm federal judges, negating the need for tie-breaking votes from Vice President Kamala Harris.
Vivek Ramaswamy
The biotech founder and author of “Woke, Inc.” has pitched himself as running to the right of Trump, saying he wants to shut down the FBI, the IRS and the Department of Education in addition to firing half the federal workforce.
Ramaswamy has touted his admiration of the former president and promised to pardon him if elected, saying shortly after the indictment, “It would be much easier for me to win this election if Trump weren’t in the race, but I stand for principles over politics. I commit to pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025 and to restore the rule of law in our country.” He urged his fellow candidates to do the same.
Asa Hutchinson
The former Arkansas governor was term-limited out of office and launched his campaign in April; his candidacy — and his persistent criticism of Trump has gained him no traction in polling thus far. Hutchinson urged his fellow party members to back off their attacks on the Justice Department and tried to alter a Republican National Committee loyalty pledge so that candidates wouldn’t have to promise to back someone facing federal charges.
Francis Suarez
The Miami mayor formally filed to enter the race on June 15, just after Trump was arraigned. Suarez, first elected to the role in 2017, is the only Hispanic currently in the race as he makes the pitch that he can broaden the party’s appeal.
The third Florida resident to enter the race after Trump and DeSantis, Suarez has been criticized for his strong backing of cryptocurrency before the industry faltered in recent years.
Will Hurd
The former Texas congressman and CIA officer is the most recent candidate to enter the race. First elected to represent a border district in 2014, Hurd announced his retirement in 2019, at which point he was the only Black Republican serving in the House. Hurd has been a frequent critic of Trump, calling him a “lawless, selfish, failed politician” in his announcement video.
Larry Elder
The host of “The Larry Elder Show” made headlines most recently in 2021 as the top Republican vote-getter in the effort to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California. While Newsom easily avoided a recall by more than 20 points, more than 3.5 million people voted for Elder as his potential replacement. Following Trump’s example, Elder baselessly claimed the race was fraudulent before results were even tallied.
