2024Sand

The 2024 United States presidential election was the 60th quadrennial U.S. presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. Republican ticket of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, narrowly defeated the Democratic ticket of incumbent President Kamala Harris and the incumbent Vice President Pete Buttigieg. It was the second successive election in which the incumbent president was defeated, after Joe Biden (with incumbent President Kamala Harris as running mate) defeated Donald Trump four years earlier in 2020, marking the third time in American history that this ocurred, after 1888/1892 and 1976/1980; as well as the sole second succesive election in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote, and the sixth time in American history that this ocurred. This was also first time that the president elected in the previous election was not incumbent since 1976, and the first time that it has been due to the president's death since 1964.

Joe Biden, who was elected president in 2020, passed away in early 2023 and was succeeded by his vice president, Kamala Harris. Harris became the first female and Asian American, as well as second African American (after Barack Obama), to become president. She nominated Pete Buttigieg, then Secretary of Transportation, as her vice president but faced a complex confirmation process in the House before assuming office on May 20, 2023. Heading into the 2024 election, Harris was unpopular and faced important challenges in Democratic primary before being narrowly nominated, with Buttigieg as her running mate.

Following Trump's death in December 2023, Republican Party nominated his closest rival, Florida's governor Ron DeSantis, with Texas' governor Greg Abbott as his running mate. In an unexpectedly close election, focused on the policies of both tickets and the effects of the recent inflation crisis, the Republican ticket narrowly won the election by 6 electoral votes while losing the popular vote by 428 366 votes, becoming the closest presidential election since 2000.

Voter turnout: 142,788,489