WASHINGTON — To call the 2024 presidential campaign unprecedented might be an understatement.
A series of shocking events has rocked this presidential race as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump sprinted to the finish line in hopes of securing the country’s highest job.
Less than four months ago, Harris wasn’t even in the race.
And Trump, whose bid to return to the White House after a felony conviction in New York was already historic, survived two apparent assassination attempts.
The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are engaged in a neck-and-neck contest that could only be decided by a handful of voters in seven swing states.
On Election Day in the United States, here’s a look at the highs – and lows – of the historic 2024 presidential campaign:
A rematch between Trump and Biden
Trump and President Joe Biden, then the Democratic presidential nominee, attracted multiple challengers as they vied for their respective parties’ nominations.
Trump certainly had a more competitive pool of primary challengers.
With the former president facing four separate criminal charges and the memory of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, still fresh in the minds of voters, including former UN Ambassador and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley , and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson ran for the Republican nomination.
At the start of the primaries, Biden appeared to be the main challenger U.S. Representative Dean Phillipswho was little known outside his district in Minnesota. But the incumbent ultimately lost more votes to Democrats, who chose “Uncommitted” rather than supporting Biden in his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
After overwhelming victories on Super Tuesday in March, both Trump and Biden secured the required number of delegates to secure their parties’ nominations.
In the 2024 presidential campaign, other candidates have also tried to make a name for themselves, perhaps most notably Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccination campaigner.
Kennedy suspended his independent presidential campaign in August and endorsed Trump.
Now an independent presidential candidate Cornel West and the Green Party candidate Jill Stone Both are competing for the White House under third-party bids.
And amid the ongoing war in Gaza, pro-Palestinian organizers through the Uncommitted National Movement have put pressure on both the Biden administration and Harris, who is vying for the Oval Office.
The movement has seen numerous organizers protesting Biden’s policies on the war between Israel and Hamas and calling for an arms embargo and a ceasefire.
Biden bows, Harris steps forward
After primaries in both parties, Biden and Trump were ready to face off again in the 2020 campaign and planned a general election debate for the end of June.
Biden’s disastrous performance, in which he spoke softly and appeared to lose his train of thought at times, sparked an outcry from Democratic lawmakers who urged him to drop his bid for the White House.
Less than a month later, as Biden battled a COVID-19 infection at home, he dropped out of the race and passed the torch to Harris.
The Veep then launched an unprecedented and accelerated presidential campaign. If elected, she would become the first woman president, the first president of South Asian descent and the second black president.
The summer months also saw Trump and Harris’ respective vice presidents – Republican Ohio Senator JD Vance and Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz – formally nominated, while both parties mobilized their supporters at their national conventions.
Assassination attempts against Trump
Trump survived an assassination attempt in July during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where officials say a suspected assassin killed a rally attendee, wounded two others and shot the former president in the ear.
The attack sparked a series of federal investigations Bipartisan Congressional Task Force to investigate.
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, whose agency faced a barrage of scrutiny after the attack, resigned just days later.
In September, authorities responded to a second apparent assassination attempt against Trump as he played golf at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, raising even more questions about the former president’s safety.
Trump’s legal disputes are at the center of the election campaign
As he runs for president, Trump has been embroiled in multiple legal battles and has had to balance his court appearances with his campaign schedule.
Trump was found guilty in a New York court in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records. He is the first former US president to be convicted of crimes.
He was also charged with one count of federal election interference and one count of election interference in Georgia.
A case against him regarding confidential federal documents has been dropped, at least for now.
His trial to interfere with the federal election was suspended for several months earlier this year while his claim for presidential immunity was heard in court.
This argument made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that presidents enjoy full immunity from criminal charges for all official “core constitutional actions,” but they have no immunity for unofficial actions.
A Trump victory in the White House could have a major impact on how his remaining legal battles play out in court – and whether they proceed at all.
Final stretch of the 2024 presidential campaign
Harris and Trump engaged in a heated exchange in a presidential debate in September in which they touted their own policy proposals.
Because polls have repeatedly shown that Trump and Harris are in an extremely tight race in which neither has a measurable advantage, the two have spent the majority of their campaigning in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin spent.
The Trump campaign received backlash over comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s racist and vulgar comments during a behind schedule October rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, including when he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of trash.”
And in what her campaign called her “closing argument,” Harris last week urged voters to reject Trump’s “chaos and division.” According to campaign estimates, she spoke to an audience of more than 75,000.
She delivered her speech at the Ellipse in Washington, DC – the site where Trump held a rally on January 6, 2021, before his supporters attacked the US Capitol.
As the country reaches the end of a grueling and protracted presidential campaign, voters will soon decide whether Harris or Trump will be the next leader of the free world.
Last updated 6:30 a.m. November 5, 2024
