From courtroom drama to a shock exit, the campaigns have been another remarkable ride for American democracy.
The 2024 US election has been a political rollercoaster: from Donald Trump’s courtroom drama and two assassination attempts to US President Joe Biden’s shock announcement that he was bowing out.
As the battle between Kamala Harris and Trump comes down to the wire, here is a timeline of how America got to election day 2024.
November 15 2022
Trump officially launches his 2024 White House bid.
November 18 2022
Jack Smith is appointed special counsel by US attorney-general Merrick Garland to oversee federal investigations into Trump.
February 14 2023
Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the UN, declares her presidential run in the first Republican challenge to Trump’s candidacy.
February 21 2023
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy throws his hat into the Republican presidential ring.
March 30 2023
Trump is indicted for the first time in the New York “hush money” case brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. The former president was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from publicly alleging an affair with Trump ahead of the 2016 election. He becomes the first former president to face criminal charges.
April 19 2023
Robert F Kennedy Jr, a member of the Kennedy political dynasty, announces he is challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
April 25 2023
Biden launches his 2024 re-election bid, setting up an expected 2020 rematch with Trump.
May 9 2023
Trump is ordered to pay US$5 million to writer E Jean Carroll after being found liable for battery and defamation for sexually abusing her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
May 22 2023
Tim Scott, US senator from South Carolina, enters the Republican presidential contest as the field to challenge Trump grows.
May 24 2023
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, announces his presidential run in a conversation with Elon Musk on X that is beset by technical glitches.
June 6 2023
Chris Christie, the brash former New Jersey governor who is one of Trump’s harshest critics in their party, joins the crowded Republican presidential field.
June 8 2023
Trump is indicted on federal charges for mishandling classified documents in a case brought by Smith. He is the first ex-president to face a federal criminal case, and later pleads not guilty.
August 1 2023
Trump is again indicted on federal charges for what Smith called an “unprecedented” attempt to overturn the 2020 US election. According to the indictment, there were “criminal efforts” to overturn the results, with the former president “determined to remain in power” and spreading lies about his supposed victory. He pleads not guilty in this case as well.
August 14 2023
Trump is indicted for a fourth time, when the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, charges him and 18 others with meddling in the 2020 presidential election and violating the state’s racketeering laws.
August 21 2023
Trump says he will not appear in the Republican primary debates, breaking with the tradition of leading candidates participating in the face-offs.
August 23 2023
Fox News hosts the first Republican presidential debate with eight participants, but not Trump, deepening the rift between the former president and the television network that helped propel him to the White House in 2016.
August 24 2023
Trump surrenders to Georgia authorities in Atlanta and subsequently posts his mugshot on social media platform X. He also sees the biggest fundraising jump of his campaign with 85,300 donations flowing in after his mugshot is taken.
September 27 2023
A New York judge issues his initial findings in a civil lawsuit brought by the New York attorney-general, declaring that Trump, his oldest sons and his business orchestrated a “persistent and repeated fraud” in which they vastly exaggerated the extent of the former president’s wealth to get favourable loans.
October 2 2023
A trial begins in New York in the civil case alleging Trump and his business inflated the value of assets by more than US$2 billion in total to obtain loans worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Letitia James, state attorney-general, is seeking US$250 million in damages.
October 7 2023
Hamas launches an attack on Israel that kills 1,200 Israelis, with hundreds more kidnapped, sparking the Israel-Hamas war, which quickly becomes a major flashpoint within the Democratic party as the US staunchly backs the Jewish state with military and intelligence aid.
October 9 2023
Kennedy drops his Democratic primary challenge to Biden and launches an independent bid for the presidency.
December 19 2023
Trump is barred from Colorado’s presidential primary ballot after the state supreme court ruled that he was disqualified from seeking office after engaging in insurrection, referring to the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6 2021. The Colorado court stays its ruling pending potential review by the US Supreme Court.
January 10, 2024
Christie drops out after failing to qualify for the fifth Republican debate, which once again airs without Trump. Instead, the former president holds a town hall on Fox News.
January 12 2024
Robert Hur is appointed special counsel by Garland to investigate Biden’s potential mishandling of government documents that were found in the president’s residential garage in Delaware and his former private office in Washington.
January 15 2024
The presidential primaries begin with the Iowa Republican caucuses.
Ramaswamy drops out of the race after finishing fourth and endorses Trump, who wins in a landslide.
January 21 2024
DeSantis ends his presidential bid and endorses Trump, a significant blow to Haley.
January 26 2024
Trump is ordered to pay US$83.3 million to Carroll for defaming her.
February 8 2024
Hur releases a report that casts Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”, painting a politically damaging picture of the president despite recommending he be spared from criminal charges. The report intensifies concerns about the president’s age.
Biden lashes out at Hur in a hastily organised press conference: “My memory is fine.”
February 16 2024
Trump is ordered to pay more than US$350 million in his New York civil fraud case, a figure that balloons to more than US$450 million with interest.
February 27 2024
Biden wins the Michigan Democratic primary, but 13.3% of the state’s Democratic electorate — more than 101,000 people — vote “uncommitted” in protest at the president’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
March 4 2024
The US Supreme Court unanimously rules that Trump can remain on the Colorado primary ballot in a legal win ahead of the “Super Tuesday” cluster of nominating contests.
March 5 2024
Trump cruises to victory in nearly all of the Super Tuesday primaries, taking him to the brink of a rematch with Biden for the general election.
March 6 2024
Haley drops out after winning the Republican primaries in only Vermont and Washington, DC. She does not immediately endorse Trump.
March 7 2024
Biden vows to fight for “democracy and freedom” in a fiery, unabashedly political State of the Union address. The delivery is watched closely after the Hur report and criticism that the president is too old to serve another term.
March 25 2024
A New York court allows Trump to post just US$175 million to delay enforcement of the civil fraud judgment, a victory for the former president after he claimed it would be “impossible” to obtain the full amount.
April 15 2024
Trump’s hush-money criminal trial begins with jury selection in New York, with dozens of individuals dismissed after declaring they could not be impartial. He is forced off the campaign trail four days a week for five weeks to sit in court throughout the trial.
April 25 2024
The US Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Trump vs United States, debating the limits of presidential immunity.
May 30 2024
Trump is found guilty on all counts in his hush-money trial, becoming the first president convicted of criminal charges. He is now a convicted felon.
Outside the courtroom, he denounces the “rigged, disgraceful trial”.
He has the best fundraising period of his campaign, bringing in more than 1mn individual donations in the three days after the conviction.
June 27 2024
Biden and Trump face off in the first US presidential debate of 2024. The president delivers a dismal performance, speaking with a raspy voice and giving rambling answers. He even appears to lose his train of thought in a high-stakes opportunity for him to allay widespread concerns over his age and fitness for office.
Democrats are sent into panic and top party members begin calling for Biden to halt his re-election bid after the stumbling performance.
July 1 2024
The US Supreme Court rules that Trump has broad immunity from criminal prosecution for his “official acts” as president, leaving lower courts to draw the boundaries between private and official acts in the federal election interference case.
July 2 2024
Lloyd Doggett becomes the first Democratic lawmaker to call publicly for Biden to drop out. He is eventually joined by dozens more.
July 11 2024
Biden holds a rare solo press conference during a Nato summit in Washington in a make-or-break moment for his candidacy. He is questioned heavily about his stamina but says he will stay in the race and “beat Trump again”.
July 13 2024
Trump is injured in an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in an act of political violence that threatens to upend the election and deepen the country’s polarisation.
Shots are fired at 6.15pm ET from outside the venue and the president is rushed offstage to his motorcade with blood visible on his right ear and streaking across his cheek. He pumps his fists in the air and shouts “fight, fight, fight” to the crowd, a moment captured in an iconic political photograph.
Musk endorses Trump after the shooting. He will become one of the president’s biggest financial backers.
July 15 2024
Trump names Ohio senator JD Vance as his running mate on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The choice is aimed at courting blue-collar voters across the swing states of the industrial Midwest.
July 17 2024
Top Democrats renew their push for Biden to drop out of the race, warning the president that he risks losing the White House to Trump and hurting Democratic congressional candidates.
July 21 2024
Biden drops out of the presidential race in a historic decision, endorsing his vice-president Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of the Democratic ticket.
It is “in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down”, he writes in a letter posted to social media.
Harris later confirms she is making a bid for the White House: “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump.”
July 22 2024
On Harris’s first full day of campaigning, she wins the backing of top Democrats, donors and delegates, bringing her closer to locking in the party’s nomination.
Harris receives 746,400 donations, the biggest fundraising jump of the whole election.
July 31 2024
As Trump struggles to adjust to a new presidential rival, he questions Harris’s racial identity at a conference for Black journalists.
August 6 2024
Harris is formally nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate ahead of the party’s convention following a days-long virtual roll call vote.
August 6 2024
Harris names Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate in a bet that he can win over working-class voters in battleground states, while also keeping the progressive wing of her party happy.
August 19 to 22 2024
The Democratic National Convention is held in Chicago, where Harris and Walz formally introduce themselves to voters.
August 23 2024
Kennedy ends his presidential bid and endorses Trump.
September 10 2024
Harris and Trump face off in the final presidential debate of the campaign. The vice-president needles her opponent, delivering a series of blows to Trump on issues from abortion to his fitness for office. Harris is also endorsed by pop star Taylor Swift.
September 12 2024
Trump rules out another presidential debate against Harris.
September 15 2024
There is a second attempt on Trump’s life. The Secret Service opens fire on a suspect at the former president’s West Palm Beach, Florida, golf club after spotting the gunman’s rifle in nearby bushes while Trump was on the green 300 to 500 yards away.
October 1 2024
Vance and Walz clash in the only vice-presidential debate, with the Ohio senator mounting a slick defence of Trump and the Minnesota governor attacking his opponent for refusing to accept the result of the 2020 election.
October 25 2024
The Washington Post declines to endorse a candidate for the first time in 36 years at the behest of its owner Jeff Bezos, the world’s second-richest man, who later defends the choice a “principled decision”. He faces backlash from the newspaper’s staff after its editorial page team had written an endorsement of Harris.
October 28 2024
Trump makes a closing pitch at a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden that was overshadowed by racist and misogynistic comments. In his remarks ahead of the former president’s, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe says Puerto Rico is “a floating island of garbage”. Investor Grant Cardone also likens Harris to a prostitute.
October 29 2024
Trump and his allies scramble to contain the fallout from the New York rally, distancing the Republican from the vulgar speakers.
Harris makes her own closing address, warning of “more chaos” under Trump, speaking from Washington at the Ellipse, the site of Trump’s January 6 2021 speech in which he called on his supporters to “fight like hell” hours before they stormed the US Capitol.
Biden appears to describe Trump’s supporters as “garbage”. The president later says he was referring to the rhetoric at the New York rally.
November 3 2024
Trump ramps up his angry rhetoric in his final days of campaigning, accusing “demonic” Democrats of “fighting so hard to steal this damn [election]”. He also says he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021 after losing to Biden.
Harris makes a late-night appearance on Saturday Night Live.
Written by: Steff Chávez in Milwaukee
© Financial Times