As America approaches Joe Biden’s final year in his first term as president of the United States, the nation’s attention has turned to the presidential candidates for 2024. With thirteen Republicans running for the presidency, compared to the three in the Democratic party, the Republicans kicked off the campaign season with two debates in August and September.
Paradoxically, the candidate who leads the polls for the Republican ticket is former President Donald Trump (2017-2021), and he was absent from the debate while embroiled in legal challenges. According to ABC News 538 data, Trump is far ahead in the polls with 55.9% as of October 6th. Governor Ron DeSantis is in second place with 14.7% of the Republican vote at present. He heralds both his four years of administrative experience as the leading state executive in Florida along with his academic credentials — an alum of Yale undergraduate and Harvard Law School. He also notes his military credentials, including that he still serves in the US Navy Reserves and has received military decorations such as a Bronze Star Medal and an Iraq Campaign Medal.
The next candidate, with 7.9% of the polls is Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy has never had any government experience. He is a first-generation American, graduated summa cum laude in Biology from Harvard, and earned his law degree from Yale. He is the author of multiple books and is an entrepreneur. He founded Roivant Sciences and is a board member of Philanthropy Roundtable and the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.
Governor Nikki Haley lags at 7.4% in the polls. Haley served as governor of South Carolina from 2011-2017 and became the US Ambassador to the United Nations under President Trump’s administration. She was raised in the Sikh faith by her Indian immigrant parents and converted to Christianity as a young adult. She graduated from Clemson University with a bachelor’s in accounting and soon after, became the CFO of the family clothing business Exotica International. She was also a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 2005-2011 and a member of the Board of Directors of Boeing from 2019-2020. She founded Stand for America PAC in 2019.
After Haley is former Vice President Mike Pence, with 4.2% of the polls. Pence received a bachelor’s in history from Hanover College and a law degree from Indiana University’s Robert H. McKinney School of Law. In 1991, he was the president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and in 2000, he became Indiana’s second congressional representative. He describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,” (Miller Center).
The next candidate, with 3.2% of the polls, is Chris Christie. Christie was the governor of New Jersey from 2010-2018. He graduated from Seton Hall and afterward joined a law firm, which piqued his interest in politics.
After Christie is Tim Scott, with 2.4% of the polls. Scott grew up in a poor, single-parent household in South Carolina and graduated from Charleston Southern University. After starting his own small business, he was elected to Charleston County Council. Following this election, he was also elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives and the United States House of Representatives. He has served in the United States Senate since 2017.
Behind Scott is Jack Burgum with 0.7% of the polls. Burgum is the governor of North Dakota. He graduated from North Dakota State University in 1978 and graduated from Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 1980. He helped to lead Great Plains Software from a small company to an award-winning tech business in which he became the CEO. Great Plains was sold to Microsoft for $1.1 billion, and Burgum became the senior vice president at Microsoft until 2007. In 2006 – 2008, he founded Kilbourne Group and Arthur Ventures. In 2009, he was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award.
Following Burgum is Asa Hutchinson with 0.5% of the polls. Hutchinson was the 46th governor of Arkansas. He graduated from the University of Arkansas School of Law. He was appointed the US attorney for Arkansas by President Reagan, the director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and undersecretary in the Department of Homeland Security by President Bush.
Moving on to the debates themselves, the first debate, which took place on August 23 in Milwaukee, included all the candidates listed above except for Trump. Ramaswamy made himself a big target that night by provoking all the candidates, resulting in drawing all the attention to himself. Ramaswamy initially provoked the candidates with his comment that he was: “the only person on [the] stage not bought and paid for.” Some of the candidates’ responses to Ramaswamy included both Pence and Christie noting that Ramaswamy had no past government experience and that he was an amateur. Christie also compared Ramaswamy to ChatGPT in one of his well-thought-out insults.
Haley used the debate to explain her views on abortion. She informed everyone that she intended to compromise with both sides if elected. Pence responded to this by telling Haley: “a consensus is the opposite of leadership.”
Later in the debate, the candidates were asked the question: “If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party’s choice? Please raise your hand if you would.” Six of the eight candidates raised their hands in the following order: Ramaswamy, Haley, Scott, Burgum, DeSantis, and Pence. Christie then took a stab at Trump when he told people that, no matter if they thought the criminal charges against Trump were right or wrong, “the conduct [was] beneath the office of president of the United States.” At the second debate, Christie added that Trump was not at the debate because he was afraid. He went on to say: “You’re ducking these things, and let me tell you what’s going to happen: you keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore; we’re going to call you Donald Duck.”
The second debate, which took place on September 27 in California, in which all of the above-listed candidates except for Hutchinson and Trump were present, brought up previous arguments that began at the first debate. Scott brought up Ramaswamy’s prior comment about all of the candidates except for himself being “bought and paid for” and said that it is interesting because Ramaswamy had previous business with the Chinese communist party and with some of the people who funded Hunter Biden. Ramaswamy defended himself by saying he did open a business in China, but he was different from every other company because he “got the hell out of there.” Later in the debate, Christie took another stab at Trump, pointing out his failure to only build fifty-two miles of the wall across the border. Burgum followed by stating that North Dakota, his home state, had the answer to America’s problems of energy, economy, and national security. Later in the debate, Ramaswamy and Haley got into a heated argument when Ramaswamy brought up that TikTok should be used to relate with the younger generations. Haley, infuriated by this, told Ramaswamy that “every time [she] hears [him], [she] feels a little bit dumber.”
So, to sum it up, the Republican debates were just as everyone expected: heated, aggressive, and less elevated in rhetoric and discussion than people seek in a presidential debate. It’s time to look forward to another presidential campaign season!
Gabriella Bogart ‘25, Contributing Writer
25gbogart@montroseschool.org