The 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be a contest like no other in American history.
It features a sitting vice president who entered the race only 107 days before Election Day and is seeking to become the first woman ever to occupy the Oval Office. She’s squaring off against a former president vying to serve two nonconsecutive terms in the White House for the first time since Grover Cleveland was reelected in 1892.
Add to the mix a failed assassination attempt, a series of criminal
“This election will be historic no matter how it turns out,” says Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University in Boston.
Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump represent not only the nation’s two major political parties, but also two clashing worldviews. Vice President Harris views America as a nation that embraces diversity, values its allies around the world, and considers government at its best to be a force for good in society. Former President Donald Trump views America as nation that for too long has catered to the needs of other countries and of immigrants trying to get into the United States. He also views America’s political system as corrupted by “a deep state” of unelected officials who favor the undeserving over hardworking everyday people.