As the year 2024 begins, so does the focus on voting. Seniors in the class of 2024 will have the chance to vote if they are 18 years old for the first time in their lives, and they need to know who they can vote for. In the 2022 presidential election, only 23% of youth voted, which is lower than in 2018, according to Tufts University. One leading cause for the low turnout percentage is a need for more knowledge about candidates.
This election, there are two Democratic candidates, three Republican candidates, and three independent or third-party candidates still in the running as of the new year. This election is an interesting one, as Joe Biden, the incumbent, does not have a sure shot at a second term. It is also interesting because Donald Trump, the frontrunner Republican candidate and former president, is facing federal and state investigations.
This year, there are two Democrats running for president, one being Biden. Biden, who has cast himself as “a protector of democracy,” is campaigning mainly over his bi-partisan accomplishments as president, including huge infrastructure bills. He wants to pull some independent or moderate Republican voters because they are essential to him winning another term. Even so, Biden would l be the oldest president of all history if he were to win the election since he would be 83 years old. For this reason, some Democratic voters are skeptical of what he can still accomplish as president. Trump and other candidates have used this to their advantage by referring to the current president as “Sleepy Joe” and other names. Not only that, but Biden is also widely disapproved in polls, with fivethirtyeight’s poll showing that 56.4% of Americans disapprove of Biden as president. That number has continued to grow throughout the presidency. According to the news site Bloomberg, Biden’s disapproval rates, aside from being caused by his age and physical standing, are “driven by concerns about high prices and security at the US-Mexico border.” Biden is also losing to Trump in most polls, so the president needs to do more to win more voters if he wants a second term to become real.
There is one other Democratic candidate, though he is not nearly as popular as Biden. His name is Dean Phillips, who is currently a moderate Democrat in the House of Representatives, where he was elected in 2018. One of his main arguments is that current president Biden is too old to hold office again and that voters should look for someone younger to run the country. Currently, Representative Phillips has a 2.9% in the Democratic primary polls.
For now, it seems Biden is the clear frontrunner for the Democratic candidate, which should be expected, as he is the incumbent. Aside from the Democrats, the other main American political party is the Republicans. There are multiple Republican nominees, but none are nearly as infamous as former President Donald J. Trump. Trump, a renowned businessman and new political power, has somewhat diminished in influence within the Republican Party for many reasons. First, he is currently facing four legal investigations from multiple jurisdictions, including the Department of Justice and the State of New York. The biggest and most spotlighted one is surrounding the January 6 insurrection on the Capital, which Trump is being charged with inciting. Even through all this legal friction, Trump holds on to his loyal and committed voters and followers, which is how he can have 67% in the polls.
Aside from Trump, there were many other Republican candidates, such as Vivek Ramaswamny, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and a few more. But as of January 22, the only other candidate is Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN). Haley, who currently holds a 12%in the national polls, has an impressive history in politics and has presented herself as a member of “a new generation of leadership” (New York Times). Though not as popular in the Republican Party as Trump, partly due to her movements to remove a Confederate flag from the capital of South Carolina, if she were to win the Republican primary, she would fare well against Biden in the presidential election, as she is likely to pull independent voters if she were to win.
Though the leading candidates come from the Democratic and Republican parties, there were and still are a handful of independent candidates. Independent candidates are not a part of any political party in the United States and usually have different campaigns and ideas than those from the Democratic and Republican parties.
A big-name independent party candidate is Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is the nephew of former president John F. Kennedy and son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. He is a strong advocate for the anti-vaccine movement and initially ran as a Democrat before switching to independent in October 2023.
Another one of the independent candidates is Cornel West, a professor who has taught at Yale University, Princeton University and Harvard University. He is labeled as a “progressive activist” by the New York Times and has sharply criticized Former President Barack Obama in the past. He was seeking to join both the People’s Party and the Green Party at some point but has remained an independent candidate for most of the election.
The third and final independent candidate running for president in 2024 is Jill Stein, a doctor. She ran in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections as a part of the Green Party, and in 2016, she pulled about 1.4 million votes. She was criticized for pulling away votes from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump by a small margin in 2016.
The independent candidates, though not very high in the polls, all have individual plans and ideas for the country, which is why it is essential to know them, just like it is important to know the Democratic and Republican candidates too.
The senior class of 2024 will be voting this fiscal year. It is very important to know who is running and why. Aside from the main frontrunners for each party, it is important to understand and see the point of view of other candidates, no matter their current standing in the polls.
SOURCES:
- https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/
- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/politics/presidential-candidates-2024.html#biden
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-investigations-new-york-fulton-county-georgia-special-counsel/
