Olivia Allery, news editor
Candidates for the 2024 Presidential elections were announced earlier this month and the primary election race is under way. Each party is evenly represented with three candidates on each of the Republican, Democratic and Independent parties.
Republican party:
Former President Donald Trump
Former South Carolina Governor and U.N Ambassador Nikki Haley
Texas Pastor and Businessman Ryan Binkley
Democratic Party:
Incumbent President Joe Biden
Former spiritual advisor to Oprah Winfrey and self-help author Marianne Williamson
Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips
Third Party:
Environmental lawyer and famous political heir Robert F. Kennedy
Former Harvard and Yale Professor and longtime activist and author Cornel West
Physician and environmental activist Jill Stein
There have already been a total of 11 drop-outs from the race, all of which being Republican candidates, most recent being Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. According to the New York Times, many of the drop outs are due to the fact that there is still continuous, overwhelming support for Trump from Republican voters, as he enters his third presidential campaign.
According to AP News, Trump is coming into this election to correct the loss he sustained in the 2020 election against current President Joe Biden. One of Trump’s biggest hopes for his presidency is to roll back immigration policy, saying in an interview from CNN that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” According to the New York Times, if elected, Trump plans on taking away due-process hearings for undocumented immigrants; relying on police and National Guard forces for immigration raids and to set up detention camps as undocumented immigrants wait for deportation.
Trump’s fellow Republican party candidates, Haley and Binkley, have similar stances on the issues. According to USA Today, while not as intense as her running mate, Haley is planning to instill the Trump era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, which would keep Southern Border asylum seekers in their home countries during immigration proceedings. Haley has also been in support of limiting Social Security and Medicare benefits for younger generations, including raising the retirement age, as they enter the workforce. Haley stated in an interview with Fox News, “What you would do is, for those in their 20s coming into the system, we would change the retirement age so that it matches life expectancy.”
On the Democratic and Third party candidates, there has been overwhelming hopes for expansions on issues such as climate change, healthcare, abortion care, policing and public safety. Incumbent President Biden is running for his second term in office and according to USA Today, hoping to “finish the job” and continue the “battle for the soul of America.” With the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Biden is hoping to refocus efforts on abortion rights and access, namely with protecting access to the abortion pill, mifepristone. According to USA Today, fellow candidates, Williamson and Phillips, have also expressed the critical action needed for climate change and are hoping to put U.S. money back into renewable energy and regulatory power back to the Environmental Protection Agency.
General Election day is coming up in November, and there is still time to look into each of the primary candidates before casting your vote for who should be the next president of the U.S.