Hello and welcome back to another edition of Lace‘Em Up’s Presidential Election series for today will be going over the Election of 2024.

Donald Trump is determined to win the White House once again but the Democrats are throwing Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him…How did it all go? Let’s find out.

President Biden’s Domestic Policies

After narrowly defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, President Joe Biden has spent the last four years attempting to lead America out of the Covid-19 Pandemic and back into a period of normalcy, albeit with varying degrees of success.

On the homefront, Biden focused on improving overtime rules, signed an executive order to help farmers with debt relief and competition, easing back regulations on Marijuana, oversaw 14.6 million jobs being created and manage to get the ball rolling on eliminating student loans for college students.

Not only that, but Biden was able to pass a much needed infrastructure bill and dealt with the shady financial practices within the airline industry; He also dealt with matters involving Unions, decreasing climate change, preserving natural resources and got some bipartisan gun reform laws passed.

Although some of these overall effects won’t occur until the following years, they are still seen as positives for the president. That said, the Biden Adminisration was unable to get the Build Back Better Act passed and inflation did increase under his watch as well as the prices of gas and food.

Foreign Affairs and The Israel-Hamas Conflict

Biden’s record when it comes to international matters hasn’t been all that great as his decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan was a great idea although the way in which it occurred wasn’t so great; Also his decision to send aid to Ukraine during that country’s war with Russia saw Americans divided on the issue with some believing the aid was needed while others believed that aid could’ve been used to help many Americans suffering from poverty.

By far the biggest issue to engulf the Biden Administration would have to be the Israel-Hamas War which occurred on October 7th 2023 by a Palestinian led Sunni nationalist group called ‘Hamas’ right on the Gaza Strip. The attack was in response to Israel’s habit of expansion, blocking goods into Gaza and Hamas demanding the release of Palestinians serving time in prison.

Israel’s intelligence agency was criticized for being caught off guard when it came to a potential attack and many still debate how informed the Israeli government was ahead of time. Nevertheless, it resulted in thousands dead, more than two-hundred people captured and led to Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu responding with military action and blocking all aid from entering Gaza which has seen everything from famine, destruction of property, loss of human life and other atrocities on both sides.

As protests in the streets emerge in the U.S. over Biden’s support and aid of Israel despite reports of the aforementioned atrocities, many middle eastern voters (especially in midwestern states) begin to lose faith in the Democrats.

Trump’s Time in Court

Donald Trump’s post presidency was anything but boring as the former celebrity turned president was hit with numerous charges like sexual abuse, refusing to hand over documents to authorities and multiple accounts of fraud from the state of New York.

The biggest trial that Trump had to deal with surrounded his hush money payments during the 2016 election after he and a porn star by the name of Stormy Daniels had an affair and kept things a secret.

On May 30th 2024, Trump was found guilty on 34 accounts, thus making him the first American President to be convicted of a crime.

2024 Republican Presidential Candidates

In spite of multiple felony charges and felony convictions on the horizon, Donald Trump announced in November of 2022 that he’d be running for the presidency a third time making him the first former president in the 21st century to do this.

Trump did have some competition on the Republican side as a bunch of names ran for the nomination:

• Ron DeSantis: Governor of Florida
• Nikki Haley: Former Representative and Governor of South Carolina
• Chris Christie: Former Governor of New Jersey who ran back in 2016
• Tim Scott: Senator of South Carolina
• Mike Pence: Former Vice President to Donald Trump
• Vivek Ramaswamy: A businessman from Ohio

Most expected DeSantis to usurp Trump as the frontrunner going into the debates and primaries but that didn’t turn out to be the case as Trump’s former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley began to surge in the polls whilst the other names soon began to drop out with most throwing their support behind Trump.

The race came down to Haley and Trump which is interesting when you realize the former president didn’t even participate in the debates or primaries due to spending time in court and his advisors believing it would be a good strategy for him to not show up less he’d be bombarded with attacks by his fellow Republicans.

The strategy paid off as Trump was able to secure the nomination with ease, making him the first person in the Republican Party’s history to be renominated three times for president nevermind in three consecutive elections; Trump chose author and veteran James David Vance (aka J.D. Vance), who was the Senator of Ohio as his running mate.

The Disasterous First Debate

Much like Trump, Joe Biden had a few names challenging him for the nomination…and much like Trump, Biden was able to win over most of the party however that would soon change when the first presidential debate got underway.

Even before these two faced off in 2020, both Biden and Trump were questioned on whether they could lead the country due to their health, age and possible cognitive decline.

When the debate commenced, it became clear that things weren’t going to end well as Trump endlessly ranted about conspiracy theories regarding the previous election, comments about overturning Roe v. Wade and supporting those who stormed the Capitol on January 6th 2021. Biden was in even worse shape has he argued with Trump for several minutes about golf and struggled to finish sentences many of which were nonsensical such as his claim that his administration “Beat Medicare”.

The media and some in the Democratic Party took the president to task for his horrendous performance resulting in him dropping out of the race on July 21st 2024, becoming the first to do so since Lyndon Johnson in 1968.

Enter Kamala Harris

With Biden dropping out, Vice President Kamala Harris soon became the pick of the Biden Administration to represent the party even though some Democrats wanted an open primary to decide who should be the nominee.

In the end, Harris (much like Hubert Humprhey in 1968) became the Democratic Party’s nominee for president despite not competing in the primaries and she also became the second woman to be nominated by the Democrats since Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Names like Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro and Andy Beshear were all considered when it came to being Harris’ running mate, but instead Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz, the likable and progressive Governor of Minnesota who (much like Vance) also served in the military and became known for calling Trump and Vance ‘Weird’ on news outlets like CNN.

Assassination Attempts and Campaign Issues

Like his previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020, Trump made misleading statements and insenstive comments about his opponent. He ran on the ideas of tightening border security, increasing tariff rates, a mass deportation of immigrants, dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, reducing prescription drug prices and generally holding policies that were anti-LGBTQ and anti-climate change.

On the other side, Harris ran on the idea of expanding Medicare and theAffordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) while also reducing drug prices for prescriptions; In interviews she looked poised to run similarly to Biden and supported policies that favored the environment, transgender rights and abortion with the latter point being seen as an issue that could help to galvanize female voters to support Harris.

Things took a shocking turn when on July 13th 2024, Donald Trump was nearly assassinated during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania by a 20 year old by the name of Thomas Matthew Crooks who shot Trump in the right ear and shot a few others in the crowd before Donald was escorted to safety and the perpetrator was soon killed by a Secret Service Sniper.

Another assassination attempt occurred on September 15th 2024 by 58 year old Hawaiian man Ryan Wesley Routh during a golf event in West Palm Beach Florida but the officials caught him before any harm could be done.

The Second Debate

Almost three months after the first debate, Donald Trump again took to the stage but this time it would be with Kamala Harris and to say things weren’t too good for Trump might be an understatement.

The former president had numerous gaffes during the second debate on the topics of abortion, healthcare, and more comments about Kamala’s race; By far the biggest and most bizzarre statement Trump made to be the one regarding a conspiracy theory about Haiti immigrants in Springfield Ohio:

“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.” 

By contrast, Harris looked commanding, mentally fit and even baited Trump into making mistakes by making comments about crowd sizes and how he was fired by 81 million Americans in the previous election while also bringing up the dangers of Project 2025 if Trump is elected.

The majority of pollsters said that Harris won the debate and even pop star, Taylor Swift who threw her support to the Vice President with some seeing this as a massive thing due to Swift’s popularity and her millions of young followers. That said, the race continued to be close going into election day with some unsure who would emerge as the winner.

The Election of 2024: The Results

Many expected it to be days before it was revealed who definitively won the race, but as it turns out it didn’t take long…Once again Donald Trump won the election and became the 47th President in American History and the first one in 132 years to win a second non-consecutive term since Grover Cleveland back in 1892.

Trump decisively won with 312 electoral votes compared to Harris winning 226 electoral votes; Trump won the exact same states he won in the 2016 election but this time won the state of Nevada.

In terms of the popular vote, Trump won 49.9% to Harris’ 48.4%; Trump became the first re-elected Republican president to win the popular vote since George Walker Bush in 2004.

Many in the media and across the country were puzzled as to how Trump managed to win especially amongst minority votes with some decrying Harris for campaigning with Republicans like Liz and Dick Cheney, her inability to differentiate herself from Biden’s policies and leaning more conservative on a few key issues.

Whatever the reasons might be, Trump’s victory combined with the GOP’s narrow control in the House, the Senate and the overall conservative takeover of the Supreme Court means that Trump and now Vice President J.D. Vance will be entering the White House with more power than ever before.

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