Former president Donald Trump announced his candidacy in November 2022, attempting to
become the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1892 to be elected to a non-consecutive
second term. President Joe Biden announced his reelection campaign in April 2023. Either would
have been the oldest elected president in U.S. history, yet each candidate easily won enough
delegates to secure their nominations. However, after a disastrous debate performance against
Trump on June 27, 2024, Biden dropped out of the race on July 21—the first time in history that
a presumptive nominee withdrew their candidacy. Within an hour after his announcement, Biden
endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who would be nominated without contest. Against a
backdrop of issues including the state of the economy, inflation, ongoing wars in Ukraine and the
Middle East, abortion rights, and immigration, the 2024 race is inevitably a referendum on
Trump, the first major-party candidate since Franklin Roosevelt to be nominated three times in a
row, and on the candidacy of Harris, who would become the first woman elected president.
Democrat
Kamala Harris for president
Tim Walz for vice president
“When We Fight, We Win.”
Vice President Kamala Harris has held elected office since 2002, when she became District
Attorney of San Francisco. In 2010, she was elected Attorney General of California, the first
woman, African American, and South Asian woman to do so. She was elected U.S. Senator in
2016, following the retirement of California Senator Barbara Boxer. And in 2020, with Joe
Biden at the top of the ticket, she was elected Vice President of the United States. Harris’s ads to
date have focused on her life story as the embodiment of the American dream; on her role as a
prosecutor, in contrast to Donald Trump’s legal struggles; and on support for the economic
concerns and rights (including abortion) for middle-class voters, contrasting what she portrays as
the extremist positions of the Trump campaign.
Republican
Donald Trump for president
JD Vance for vice president
“Make America Great Again.”
Donald Trump’s campaign, and his presidency, are unprecedented in many ways. He has secured
the loyal support of his followers, despite—or perhaps because of—the disruptive nature of his
rhetoric and his frequent courting of controversy. Yet the lines of attack in his campaign ads
follow templates set by many previous Republican campaigns, portraying his opponent as being
recklessly liberal, and weak on military issues, the handling of the economy, and immigration.
Many of the ads play on fear, in a way that was used most successfully in the 1988 George Bush
campaign, which had been under the direction of then political consultant Roger Ailes. The
campaign is also using a common approach for attacking vice presidents, tying them to the
records of the president they have served.
