As of April 3, 2024, six noteworthy candidates are running in the 2024 presidential election, including one Democrat and five Republicans.
Below is a summary of each candidate’s campaign activity from March 27 to April 3.
- Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) announced his campaign. In an April 2 interview on ABC’s “This Week,” he said, “I am going to be running. And the reason, as I’ve traveled the country for six months, I hear people talk about the leadership of our country, and I’m convinced that people want leaders that appeal to the best of America, and not simply appeal to our worst instincts.”
- Marianne Williamson (D) campaigned across South Carolina from March 27 to March 29. She spoke at a drag show and story hour in Johnson City, Tennessee, on March 31.
- Nikki Haley (R) campaigned in New Hampshire on March 27 and March 28. She wrote an op-ed for the National Review on March 29 titled “Ending the Fentanyl Crisis Starts by Securing the Border.” On April 3, she visited the United States-Mexico border.
- Vivek Ramaswamy (R) published an op-ed in the New York Post on March 27 titled “The USA is experiencing a crisis of faith — in itself” and aired his first television ad in New Hampshire on March 29. He spoke at the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit on March 31.
- Donald Trump (R) hired Trevor Naglieri, the national field director for Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) 2016 presidential campaign, as the Trump campaign’s New Hampshire state director, according to reporting from Politico on March 28. On March 30, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) announced a grand jury had voted to indict Trump on criminal charges. Trump issued a statement in response, saying in part, “This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
- Ballotpedia did not identify any campaign activity this past week from Corey Stapleton (R).
At this point in the 2020 cycle, 18 noteworthy candidates were running for president. Seventeen were seeking the Democratic nomination, and one (Trump) was seeking the Republican nomination.
Notable stories at the time included the Democratic National Committee announcing on March 28, 2019, that the first Democratic primary debates would be held in Miami, Florida, on June 26 and 27. The DNC also announced that the second set of Democratic primary debates would be held in Detroit, Michigan, on July 30-31. This cycle, the DNC has not yet announced whether it will hold primary debates. The Republican National Committee has announced it plans to hold its first primary debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in August 2023.
In the 2016 election cycle, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was the only noteworthy candidate who had announced his campaign as of April 3, 2015. At this point in the 2016 cycle, media outlets were reporting about possible presidential candidates. FiveThirtyEight profiled several Democratic candidates who might have run if Hillary Clinton (D) did not enter the race, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said there was a “higher than 90 percent” chance that she would run for president. Fiorina later entered the race and joined Ted Cruz’s campaign as a vice presidential candidate.
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