By Costas Pitas and Susan Heavey
(Reuters) - Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump will face each other in the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, after a divisive, closely fought contest. Several third-party hopefuls are also running.
Here is a list of the candidates:
REPUBLICAN PARTY
DONALD TRUMP
Trump, 78, became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime when a Manhattan jury in May found him guilty of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to a porn star to silence her ahead of the 2016 election. He says he is innocent and will appeal the conviction.
Trump's July 11 sentencing was postponed until Sept. 18 after he asked for a chance to argue he should have been immune from prosecution following a July Supreme Court ruling that presidents are entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.
The sentencing had been due four days before the start of the Republican National Convention, where he is due to be formally nominated to face Biden in the first presidential rematch in nearly 70 years.
Trump, in office from 2017-2021, has leveraged his unprecedented legal challenges to solidify support among his base, and has cast his third bid for the White House in part as "retribution" against perceived political enemies.
But following his felony conviction, 10% of Republican and 25% of independent registered voters said they were less likely to vote for him, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Trump faces 54 charges in three other criminal cases: a federal case involving efforts to subvert the 2020 election, a Georgia election interference case and a federal case in Florida over his handling of classified documents after leaving office. He denies wrongdoing in all the cases.
However, the New York hush money trial could be the only one to take place before the Nov. 5 election. July's Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity makes it improbable that Trump will be tried before the election on federal criminal charges regarding efforts to undo the 2020 election loss to Biden.
Trump has refused to commit to accepting the 2024 election results or to rule out possible violence around the Nov. 5 contest or his sentencing, and is already laying the groundwork to contest a potential election loss.
He calls his supporters jailed for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol "hostages" and "warriors," and uses increasingly dystopian rhetoric including calling his enemies "vermin."
If elected to another four-year term, Trump has vowed "revenge" on his political enemies and said he would not be a dictator except "on day one," later calling that "a joke." He also wants the power to replace federal civil service workers with loyalists.
On foreign policy, Trump sparked criticism from Western leaders for saying the U.S. would not defend NATO members that did not spend enough on defense and that he would encourage Russia to attack them. He also pressed congressional Republicans to stall military aid for Ukraine before later reversing course.
Trump has made immigration one of his top domestic campaign issues, declaring he would carry out mass deportations, use the National Guard and possibly federal troops, end birthright citizenship, and expand a travel ban on people from certain countries.
He has referred to some migrants as "animals" who are "poisoning the blood of our country," among other inflammatory remarks, and has not ruled out building detention camps on U.S. soil. But foreigners who graduate from a U.S. college would get a green card allowing them to stay, he said.
A campaign spokesperson later clarified that this policy would only apply to a select set of the "most skilled" graduates who had been thoroughly vetted.
On abortion, Trump takes credit for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and has said abortion should remain a state issue.
While he has criticized some Republican-led state actions such as those in Florida and Arizona, he said he would allow Republican-led states to track women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate their state bans. Trump has said he does not support a ban on access to birth control.
He promised to eliminate Obamacare health insurance before saying in an April 11 video that he would not "terminate" it. On education, he has pledged to halt federal funding to schools with vaccine mandates and to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. He has also vowed to undo much of the Biden administration’s work to fight climate change.
Trump has not announced a vice presidential running mate. Several possibilities have been floated, and some attended his New York trial.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY
JOE BIDEN
Biden has cast himself as the country's best hope to defend American liberties and protect democracy, saying Trump is unhinged and threatens the future of the country.
He faced no serious challenger for the Democratic nomination, which he clinched in March.
Biden, already the oldest U.S. president ever at 81, must convince voters that he is more fit for office than Trump, who is just three years his junior, while combating low approval ratings that are worse among younger voters.
He faced widespread criticism for a feeble performance during the first presidential debate in June against Trump, a showing that prompted days of hand-wringing and calls from some for him to step aside.
"I don't walk as easy as I used to, I don't speak as smoothly as I used to, I don't debate as well as I used to," Biden told a crowd the day after the TV showdown, while vowing to beat his rival.
One in three Democrats think Biden should end his reelection bid following the debate, but no prominent elected Democrat does any better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in July.
Democratic leaders rejected calls for their party to choose a younger presidential candidate, and Biden is set to be officially nominated later this summer.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released in July puts both Biden and Trump on 40% among registered voters, suggesting that Biden had not lost ground since the debate. Trump leads Biden in many battleground states, according to several pollsters.
The economy will also likely be a major factor in determining whether Biden returns to the White House.
While the U.S. escaped an anticipated recession and is growing faster than economists expected, voters are disenchanted with higher food and fuel costs as well as elevated interest rates.
Biden pushed through massive economic stimulus and infrastructure spending packages to boost U.S. industrial output, but has received little credit for it from voters so far.
His campaign has highlighted new semiconductor manufacturing plants, housing plansand other economic efforts. Two labor groups, the United Auto Workers union and the North America's Building Trade Union, have endorsed him, but another major union, the Teamsters, has yet to announce which candidate they are backing. Three groups representing older Americans have also endorsed Biden.
Along with Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden has zeroed in on abortion as a top issue. They also created a new coalition to court Black voters, a critical voting bloc that has historically voted for Democrats but is showing signs of weakened support for Biden.
Biden's handling of immigration policy has been criticized by Republicans and some Democrats as he has struggled with millions of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
In June, he signed an executive order to curb migration along the southern border, under which migrants caught illegally crossing the border could be denied the chance to claim asylum and then quickly deported or turned back to Mexico. He also announced a new path for citizenship for certain immigrants in the country illegally who are married to U.S. citizens.
The president has led the response of Western governments to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, persuading allies to punish Russia and support Kyiv, and secured additional funding in April after a months-long battle with congressional Republicans.
Biden has provided military aid to Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack while urging more humanitarian assistance for Palestinians as a May Reuters/Ipsos poll found Democrats remain divided over the issue.
He has faced criticism from many Democrats and younger voters for continuing to give weapons to Israel while largely failing to curb Israel's deadly military offensive in Gaza. Biden has presented a new Israeli proposal for a fresh Gaza ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages and called on Hamas to accept it.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
Best-selling author and self-help guru Marianne Williamson, 71, relaunched her long-shot 2024 presidential bid earlier this year focusing on "justice and love" less than one month after dropping out.
In a February statement, she said she was getting back in to fight Trump's "dark and authoritarian vision" after earlier suspending it because she was losing "the horse race."
Williamson previously ran as a Democrat in the 2020 presidential primary but dropped out before voting began.
INDEPENDENTS
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.
An anti-vaccine activist and environmental advocate, Kennedy, 70, is running as an independent after initially challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination but missed the deadline to qualify for the first presidential debate.
While he lags in overall polling, Kennedy could siphon votes from Trump and Biden, with a June Reuters/Ipsos poll showing he was backed by 10% of respondents.
The son of Democratic U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 during his own presidential bid, Kennedy has drawn rebukes from his famous family, which has endorsed Biden.
Kennedy, who chose wealthy lawyer Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, supports Israel and questions a six-week ceasefire backed by Biden.
He said he views the U.S. southern border situation as a humanitarian crisis and opposes Trump's border wall. He has also vowed to repeal parts of Biden's climate bill over tax breaks he says help the oil industry.
Kennedy has taken different positions on abortion rights, including restrictions on when a woman can access an abortion. He told Reuters he thought every abortion was a "tragedy" but that it should be a woman's right "throughout the pregnancy."
He has been criticized for making false medical claims over the years on vaccines but says he would still allow Americans to access them.
His campaign has said Kennedy had a brain worm more than a decade ago but he has fully recovered.
Kennedy's campaign has said he is officially on the ballot in a handful of states so far, including California, Michigan and Utah, although he faces a challenging, costly battle to be listed in all 50.
CORNEL WEST
The political activist, philosopher and academic is making a third-party bid for president that is most likely to appeal to progressive, Democratic-leaning voters.
West, 71, initially ran as a Green Party candidate but said in October that people "want good policies over partisan politics" and declared himself an independent. He has promised to end poverty and guarantee housing.
GREEN PARTY
JILL STEIN
Jill Stein, a physician who ran under the Green Party in 2016, is trying once again in 2024.
She launched her current campaign accusing Democrats of betraying their promises "for working people, youth and the climate again and again - while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place."
Stein, 74, raised millions of dollars for recounts after Trump's surprise 2016 victory. Her allegations yielded only one electoral review in Wisconsin that showed Trump had won.
LIBERTARIAN PARTY
CHASE OLIVER
While the Libertarian Party invited both Trump and Kennedy to speak at their convention in late May, it ultimately selected Chase Oliver, 38. Oliver ran for a Georgia state Senate seat in 2022 and garnered 2% of the vote.
(Reporting by Costas Pitas and Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Stephanie Kelly; Editing by Ross Colvin, Jonathan Oatis, Daniel Wallis and Chizu Nomiyama)
