Recent weeks have seen the recalibration of the 2024 US presidential race with President Biden being replaced on the Democratic ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris. Peter Finn highlights some significant recent events of the 2024 presidential election, before moving on to note key markers to look out for as we head towards Election Day in November.
- This article is part of ‘The 2024 Elections’ series curated by Peter Finn (Kingston University). Ahead of the 2024 election, this series is exploring US elections at the state and national level. If you are interested in contributing to the series, contact Peter Finn (p.finn@kingston.ac.uk).
November 5th, Election Day, will mark the culmination of the 2024 US election cycle. However, since the debate between President Joe Biden and former, and potential future, President Donald Trump on June 27, the 2024 race for US president has been recalibrated. First, Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday July 13, which was followed by the Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15-18, that, bar a speech from Trump which descended into typical Trumpian incoherence, was relatively uneventful, and included the announcement of Ohio Senator JD Vance as Trump’s Vice Presidential nominee.
On the Democrats’ side, however, following a stifled, and at times incoherent, debate performance by Biden in June, pressure on him to stand down from the presidential ticket emerged. This pressure built within the Democratic Party, during a month that also saw Biden test positive for COVID-19, to the extent that he announced on July 21 that he would be stepping down as the Democratic Nominee: putting his support behind his Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him. Harris quickly secured the nomination, and put forward Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz as her Vice Presidential nominee in early August.
As such, the race for the White House in late summer looks very different from just a few months ago. Below, I chart the key markers leading up to Election Day on November 5, as summarised in Table 1 below.
Table 1 – Key Dates in the 2024 US Presidential Election, August-November 2024
| Event | Date(s) |
|---|---|
| Democratic Convention in Chicago, Illinois | August 19-22 |
| Presidential Candidate Debates | First: September 10 Second: TBC Third: TBC |
| Vice Presidential Candidate Debate | TBC |
| Legal Hearings in Trump Hush Money Case | Ruling on Immunity: September 16 Sentencing: September 18 |
| Early Voting Begins | September 20 |
| Election Day | November 5 |
Democratic Convention
Occurring in Chicago, Illinois on August 19-22, the 2024 Democratic Party Convention will be key in allowing the party to fully introduce the Harris-Walz ticket nationally. As seen in a surge in donations and some polls in some swing states showing a slight (i.e., the differences are small, so analysis and interpretation should be tempered) shift towards Harris-Walz and away from Trump-Vance, the move away from Biden does, in the short-term at least, appear to be paying dividends.
“Early Voting” (CC BY 2.0) by MDGovpics
A well-managed and unified convention will, one presumes, be a key plank of a strategy aimed at turning these positive signs into sustained trends. Yet, one presumes that given the fine margins involved in the race, and the institutional memories of the loss of Hilary Clinton in 2016 and the campaign led by Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, that there will not be any complacency within the Democratic Party.
Debate(s?)
On August 8 ABC news announced that, following some back and forth between the Harris and Trump campaigns, it would broadcast a debate between the two candidates on September 10. The debate will be moderated by ABC journalists David Muir and Linsey Davis. This date and broadcaster are the same as the second debate that was scheduled between Trump and Biden prior to the latter stepping down.
As of the time of writing, the specific details of further debates have yet to be confirmed. For his part, Trump has said he would like three debates with Harris, with the second and third hosted by Fox News and NBC. Harris has stated that “Trump has to show up” before further debates are confirmed. It is not clear whether there will be a vice-presidential debate between Walz and Vance.
Trump legal hearings
As has been the case throughout the 2024 race, one of the unknowns in the final stages is how, or if, the legal cases against Trump will impact the race. In late May, Trump was found guilty of almost three dozen charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg related to payments, and the attempts to cover up these payments, made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election campaign. A ruling on presidential immunity in the case is due September 16, with sentencing due just two days later. Beyond these hearings, multiple other cases against Trump rumple on in the background.
Early voting
Just over a month after the Democratic Convention in Chicago finishes, and only 10 days after the first (and potentially only) Harris-Trump debate takes place, early voting opens in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia on September 20, with voting starting in Illinois the following week. October sees early voting begin in the bulk of states starting in Vermont on October 1, followed by California, Montana, and Nebraska on October 7, whilst the next couple of days sees polls open in Indiana, New Mexico, Ohio, Wyoming, and Arizona. The second half of October sees a slew of further states start early voting, rounded off by Kentucky on October 31. As such, come the end of October, tens of millions of votes will have already been cast.
Election Day
The marque output of a complex, multi-faceted, ever evolving multi-level cyclical electoral system that reflects the structures and state and territory boundaries bequeathed by history to current residents of the US, US presidential election days occur every four years. Bringing with them a degree of international attention that few, if any, other political events attract.
The height of Summer 2024 has upended the Democratic ticket, while at almost the same time Trump introduced his nomination for Vice President just days after surviving an assassination attempt. The final acts of the 2024 cycle will occur in the next two and a half months, and will, in part at least, be shaped by the markers highlighted above.
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Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.
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