Washington — The 2024 presidential campaign is heating up by the week, as more candidates jump in and others bow out.

Four Republicans so far have launched their campaigns for the party’s nomination, while President Biden officially launched his reelection bid with a video released on April 25, exactly four years after he entered the race in 2020.

The field of GOP presidential hopefuls is expected to grow as campaign season revs up, but with the first presidential primary still nearly a year away, a lot can change before voters head to the polls.

Here is the current field of candidates and those who may enter the race.

President Biden

After months of saying that it’s his “intention” to run for reelection, Mr. Biden made it official on April 25 with the release of a video declaring “let’s finish this job.”

“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America — and we still are,” the president said in the three-minute-long video. “The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer. I know what I want the answer to be. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for reelection.”

Mr. Biden sought to draw distinctions between his administration’s policy positions and those of his political opponents by using footage of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and pro-abortion rights protesters outside of the Supreme Court, as well as images of Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, former President Donald Trump and GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

“Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away,” Mr. Biden said. “Cutting social security that you’ve paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy. Dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love. All while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.”

The president said that it is the time for Americans “to defend democracy, stand up for our personal freedoms, stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights.”

“Let’s finish this job, I know we can,” he said, “because this is the United States of America. And there’s nothing we can’t do if we do it together.”

Mr. Biden’s reelection announcement had been anticipated for months, though the timing had shifted from January to February and finally April.
Multiple people familiar with the ongoing planning told CBS News that the president was in no hurry to launch his campaign and take media attention from leading GOP contenders Trump and DeSantis, who have been duking it out with mixed success. And now, there’s the indictment of Trump by a grand jury in New York, which has unclear political and legal implications.
An announcement by Mr. Biden comes as a special counsel is investigating documents that were marked classified that were discovered at his former office at a think tank and his residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Donald Trump

Trump was the first candidate to formally announce a 2024 presidential run, launching his campaign in a November speech from Mar-a-Lago, his South Florida resort. Since then, Trump has spent little time on the campaign trail but ramped up his travel in recent weeks with visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states on the GOP primary calendar. 

Considered to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, Trump delivered the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 4 after winning its straw poll of attendees.

While Trump maintains popularity within the party, his legal troubles loom large over his candidacy. In addition to two Justice Department investigations led by special counsel Jack Smith — one into his handling of documents marked classified discovered at Mar-a-Lago, and the second into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election — there are ongoing probes from local prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, and the district attorney in Manhattan.

Still, Trump told reporters at CPAC that an indictment would not deter him from seeking the presidency.

“I wouldn’t even think about leaving,” the former president said when asked whether he would stay in the race if charged. 

Nikki Haley

Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, joined the race for the Republican presidential nomination in mid-February, becoming the first challenger to her former boss. 

In her pitch to voters, Haley, 51, has characterized herself as part of a new generation of Republican leadership and proposed mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75 — a subtle jab at Trump, who is 76, and Mr. Biden, who is 80.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, and served two terms as governor. She was the top U.S. diplomat at the United Nations during the Trump administration from January 2017 to December 2018.

Vivek Ramaswamy 

Ramaswamy, a former biotech executive, is considered a longshot for the Republican nomination but is so far only the third Republican to jump into the race.

At 37 years old and with a net worth of roughly $600 million, Ramaswamy has declared himself an “anti-woke” capitalist and decried corporate investment based on environmental, social and governance principles.

Ramaswamy is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, and has ties to Sen. J.D. Vance and major GOP donor Peter Thiel. 

Asa Hutchinson

Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, became the fourth Republican to announce a 2024 presidential bid when he said he was getting in the race on April 2.

Hutchinson, 72, served two terms as governor from 2015 to 2023. A former congressman, he was also one of the House impeachment managers for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.

He has said he opposes Trump’s third attempt to win the White House, describing a possible Trump 2024 nomination as the “worst scenario.”

Marianne Williamson

Williamson is the first Democrat to officially declare her candidacy, jumping into the race despite indications that the president will seek another term.

Her decision to run positions Williamson as the first primary challenger to Mr. Biden, though it’s highly unlikely she’ll win the Democratic nomination.

Williamson, 70, is an author and spiritual adviser who sought the Democratic nomination in 2020 but failed to gain traction among the crowded field of candidates. After dropping out of the race, she threw her support behind Andrew Yang in the Iowa caucuses.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and scion of one of the country’s most famous political families, is running for president. He filed a statement of candidacy on Apr. 5 with the Federal Election Commission.

The 69-year-old’s campaign to challenge incumbent President Biden for the Democratic nomination is a long shot. 

Kennedy, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of his slain brother Robert F. Kennedy, was once a bestselling author and environmental lawyer who worked on issues such as clean water.

But more than 15 years ago, he became fixated on a belief that vaccines are not safe and emerged as one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement, and his work has been described by public health experts — and even members of his own family — as misleading and dangerous. His anti-vaccine efforts intensified after the COVID-19 pandemic and development of the COVID-19 vaccine, and during the pandemic, his anti-vaccine charity saw revenues double” to $6.8 million, according to filings made with charity regulators.

Kennedy released a book in 2021, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” in which he accused the U.S.’s top infectious disease doctor of assisting in “a historic coup d’etat against Western democracy” and promoted unproven COVID-19 treatments such as ivermectin, which is meant to treat parasites, and the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

The Republicans who are expected to run

Ron DeSantis

Though he hasn’t formally announced a presidential campaign, Florida’s governor is considered the chief rival to Trump. DeSantis is in his second term as governor, and during his time in Tallahassee he has gained national recognition for his COVID-19 policies and embrace of the culture wars.

DeSantis has also leaned into education issues, reshaping Florida’s public education policies and engaging in local school board races during the 2022 election cycle. His efforts as governor have won him popularity with Republican voters, and though he hasn’t launched a campaign, DeSantis is set to make stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, another early voting state, to promote his new book.

DeSantis skipped CPAC this year and instead addressed donors at a retreat hosted by the conservative Club for Growth.

Mike Pence

The former vice president and Indiana governor has signaled he is exploring a presidential bid and said he intends to make a decision on his political future by the spring. Pence, though, has suggested he believes the GOP should move on from Trump.

“I think we’re going to have new leadership in this party and in this country,” he told CBS News in January.

Pence also has declined to commit to supporting Trump if he is the Republican nominee, instead saying that he believes GOP voters will choose “wisely again” in 2024 and thinks “different times call for different leadership.”

While Pence has promoted the policies of the Trump administration, he has also criticized the former president for his actions on Jan. 6, saying in November that Trump’s words were “reckless” and put him and his family, who were on Capitol Hill that day for the joint session of Congress, in danger.

Tim Scott

Sen. Tim Scott, of South Carolina, officially launched an exploratory committee for a 2024 presidential campaign in April, declaring in a video that he would “never back down in defense of the conservative values that make America exceptional. And that’s why I’m announcing my exploratory committee for president of the United States.”

He’s betting on the appeal of his upbeat vision for the country. “I see that America is starving for positive, optimistic leadership,” Scott told CBS News political correspondent Huey-BurnsTim Scott declines to say whether he’d back the 2024 GOP presidential nominee if it’s Trump after announcing the launch of this exploratory committee. “I want to provide that alternative not to any specific candidate, but for the American people.”

“The difference between me and others, I believe, is that my focus is on the fact that I used to be a kid who didn’t see a future,” Scott continued. “I used to be a kid that was angry about the cards that I was dealt. I was blessed by a mother who never surrendered. I was blessed by a mentor who always loved and supported my ideal self. And it’s because of those two individuals that I now have greater faith in the future for others. And I see my responsibility of sharing the good news of who we can be because we have been. If we can unite this country around the solutions, focusing more on those solutions than anything else, it’s my only path forward, and it’s the one I’ve chosen.”

In his interview with Huey-Burns, he also declined twice to commit to supporting Trump, if the former president wins the GOP nomination.

Scott, the only Black Republican senator, has been visiting early-voting states. He has hired former GOP Sen. Cory Gardner and a longtime GOP operative to lead his super PAC Opportunity Matters, according to Axios.

Chris Sununu

Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, has not held back in criticizing Trump and provided a preview of his pitch to voters during an interview with “Face the Nation” last month, during which he promoted a “New Hampshire model” of leadership.

Sununu said the American people are “tired of extreme candidates” and partisan gridlock.

In 2021, Sununu decided to forgo a run for the Senate to challenge first-term Democrat Maggie Hassan and opted instead to seek a fourth term as governor, which he won in November. 

Who’s not running

Larry Hogan

The former Maryland governor announced Sunday that he would not seek the Republican nomination for president after giving it “serious consideration.”

Hogan said his decision not to pursue the presidency may make it more difficult for Trump to claim the nomination.

Mike Pompeo

Pompeo announced April 13 he will not be joining the race, saying “this isn’t the time.”

“This isn’t our moment,” Pompeo told Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier,” referring to the decision he had made with his wife.

When asked whether Trump’s lead in the polls factored into his decision, Pompeo said, “not at all.”

He left the door open to a future run.