The other guys: Meet Trump and Biden’s long-shot 2024 challengers
Emily Jacobs
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President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump may be their respective parties’ front-runners in the 2024 presidential primary contests, but they are far from the only candidates.
As of Friday, an astonishing 655 people have filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to declare their candidacy in the 2024 presidential race. That includes 94 Democrats and 193 Republicans, almost all of whom are considered long-shot candidates for their parties’ nominations. While some on the list are familiar names, even they face significant hurdles breaking through an already crowded field dominated by two U.S. presidents.
TRUMP CAMPAIGN VETERAN RECRUITED BY 2024 GOP HOPEFUL VIVEK RAMASWAMY
On the Democratic side, with Biden being an incumbent, any noteworthy primary challenger has yet to reveal their hand. Two well-known Democrats, bestselling author Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have announced in recent months, but neither is viewed as a serious threat.
Trump continues to dominate the GOP primary polls, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to declare his candidacy. That hasn’t stopped a number of prominent Republican names polling under 10% from entering the race, as well as some less familiar faces with business backgrounds or experience in state and local government.
Here is a list of some of the lesser-known candidates challenging Biden and Trump for their respective parties’ nominations:
Marianne Williamson — Democrat
Williamson is the bestselling self-help author who first entered the political arena with her 2020 Democratic presidential bid. Despite dropping out before the start of the primaries in January 2020, she outlasted numerous other serious contenders, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who withdrew from the race one month earlier.
She ran her 2020 race on a more liberal platform, embracing “Medicare for all” and implementing a $15 federal minimum wage.
The self-help guru, 70, said when announcing her 2024 campaign in March: “I don’t see myself as running against Joe Biden. I see this campaign as challenging a system. I have no interest in taking potshots on any personal level to this president. He’s a nice man.”
She also chalked up the notion of her being a long-shot candidate to the system in place that protects the powers that be. Still, Williamson said she hopes there is a spirited contest and that the president agrees to debate her.
“He certainly should debate me. It’s called democracy, and I’m running as well,” she said. “I will certainly endorse the candidate who I feel can beat the Republicans, absolutely.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — Democrat
RFK Jr. is mostly known for being the son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 when he was fatally shot. His assassination sent both the party and the nation into disarray during what was an extremely heated election year as discontent grew over the Vietnam War.
Kennedy’s 69-year-old son has distinguished himself as a staunch opponent of cash bail and a prominent anti-vaccine activist. Prior to his anti-vaccine activism, which goes back at least 15 years, he was a bestselling author and environmental lawyer.
Kennedy launched a fundraising campaign on social media in March to help him decide whether to launch a White House bid, tweeting at the time, “If it looks like I can raise the money and mobilize enough people to win, I’ll jump in the race.”
“If I run, my top priority will be to end the corrupt merger between state and corporate power that has ruined our economy, shattered the middle class, polluted our landscapes and waters, poisoned our children, and robbed us of our values and freedoms,” he wrote. “Together we can restore America’s democracy.”
He plans to declare his candidacy at an event in Boston, Massachusetts, next Wednesday, where he’ll likely offer some semblance of a campaign platform.
Vivek Ramaswamy — Republican
Ramaswamy is a biotechnology entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of $700 million who has been largely self-financing his campaign. He became a famous conservative voice in 2021 after publishing his bestselling book, Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, which takes aim at environmental, social, and governance investing and advocates against corporations getting involved in political disputes.
The 37-year-old is a first-generation Indian American lawyer from Cincinnati, Ohio, who launched his presidential bid in February. Ramaswamy’s platform includes abolishing the FBI and the Department of Education. He argues the latter “has no reason to exist.”
Ramaswamy launched his campaign early enough for a media-savvy political outsider to get press attention. He has aimed to run a purely positive campaign, frequently discussing his differences with Trump while reiterating his respect for the former president and making note of their personal friendship.
He has also been a vocal critic of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for bringing charges against the former president related to a 2016 hush money payment. Ramaswamy called on fellow candidates to condemn the indictment, which he said could serve as a “giant leap towards the national divorce.”
The 2024 hopeful seized on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) call for a “national divorce” while at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference last month, asking the crowd, “Do we want a national divorce? Or do we want a national revival?”
Perry Johnson — Republican
Perry Johnson is a Michigan businessman who launched his 2024 presidential bid at this year’s CPAC. Johnson took third in CPAC’s straw poll, prompting questions given his lack of name recognition or political experience.
Ramaswamy alleged that the conference offered him the opportunity to purchase a second-place finish for $100,000, something CPAC officials denied. The biotechnology mogul finished with only 1% in the straw poll, which was led by Trump with 62% and DeSantis with 20%. Johnson, meanwhile, got 5% of the vote.
There is no evidence that Johnson was offered to buy his third-place finish in the poll. The political newcomer had volunteers sporting red T-shirts that read in big letters, “Perry Who?” that personally courted the small group of attendees as the vote was taken.
Johnson previously ran for office in 2022, when he failed to qualify for the 2022 Michigan GOP gubernatorial primary to challenge Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the general election. The Republican, whose companies specialize in quality standards certifications, failed to submit enough petition signatures to get on the ballot. The state Bureau of Elections determined that 9,393 of the 23,193 signatures Johnson’s campaign submitted were invalid, placing him below the necessary 15,000 threshold to get on the ballot.
Steve Laffey — Republican
Laffey was the mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, from 2003 to 2007. He unsuccessfully challenged then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) in the primary for his 2006 reelection campaign. Chafee, who has switched parties numerous times and now identifies as libertarian, went on to lose in the general election to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
While he also has the benefit of having entered the race early, declaring his candidacy in February like Ramaswamy, Laffey has significant obstacles standing in his way of the 2024 party nomination. He lacks any sort of national name recognition and has no statewide or federal experience. He also hasn’t served in public office for nearly two decades.
He has fashioned himself as a practical, solutions-oriented candidate who would eschew the partisan politics currently plaguing the national discourse.
“Our country has done the equivalent of using Band-Aids in place of major surgery. Somehow, we have ‘gotten by,'” he said during his campaign launch. “For the first time in a generation, we must directly confront our problems.”
Corey Stapleton — Republican
Stapleton served as Montana’s secretary of state from 2017-2021. He was one of the first Republicans in his state to recognize Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, tweeting a congratulatory message to the then-president-elect on the day his victory was called.
He also served eight years in the Montana state Senate.
Stapleton became a musician after leaving elected office, forming a band called Corey Stapleton and the Pretty Pirates. He said when launching his campaign that he believes music can bring people together.
The presidential hopeful has spent some time on the road since launching his 2024 bid, visiting New Hampshire and leading a delegation to Ukraine to voice U.S. support amid the continued Russian military invasion.
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While it is not clear if Stapleton is running specifically to challenge the former president and current primary front-runner, he did announce an exploratory committee within days of Trump launching his 2024 campaign.
“We’re more alike than we are different,” Stapleton said in a press release launching his bid. “When you look at the last few years in America, we see chaos, dysfunction, dishonesty, disappointment. It doesn’t have to be that way. We’re better than this.”