The race for a seat in the White House was intense. At first, it was a competition between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump. President Biden decided that he would run alongside his current Vice President Kamala Harris, while former president Trump decided to run with Republican Ohio state senator JD Vance. However, things took a turn during the first presidential debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta, where Biden received a lot of public judgment and criticism for deciding to run in the 2024 election given his age. In results from a poll published on CNN’s website on July 2, “Three-quarters of US voters say the Democratic Party would have a better shot at holding the presidency in 2024 with someone other than President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.” The first debate was a challenging moment for President Biden’s campaign.
On July 21, 2023, at 1:46PM, Biden released a letter to the American people on X stating, “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.” Shortly after at 2:13PM, he posted again on X, endorsing Harris: “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement to Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.” Once Harris joined the 2024 election, she raised $1 billion in campaign money to help her continue through the election. Vice President Harris was able to close the gap between her and her opponent in the most recent polls due to the debate hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia. This was the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Once the debate was over, another poll was done by CNN, fact checking both Vice President Harris’ claims and former President Trump’s claims. As the candidates continued to go around the U.S. hosting rallies, their time was almost up trying to gain support.
On November 6, a day after the election, it was announced that Donald Trump had won the presidential race. According to NBC News, Donald Trump won the presidency with 291 Electoral College votes, surpassing the required 270. Donald Trump was able to gain 72,034,136 votes in the popular vote, while Harris earned 67,185,065 votes in the popular vote and 226 votes in the Electoral College. After Trump’s win, Harris addressed a crowd of supporters at Howard University. In her concession speech on November 6 she stated, “Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”
