Trump v Biden: who’s ahead in the latest polls? (2024)

Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed to meet for the first of two debates, sidestepping the commission that normally arranges three. Normally, the candidates hash out important issues (or at least trade insults) for 90 minutes.

Typically a four-day pageant for the party’s chosen nominee, the party will formally select a presidential and vice-presidential candidate in Milwaukee.

Similar to the Republican convention a month earlier, the Democrats will formally nominate Mr Biden as their presidential candidate in Chicago.

The two main candidates will meet again a week after Labor Day (traditionally when Americans begin to pay attention to the election). Holding the debates so long before most people vote will no doubt lessen their impact on the race.

Polls open on a Tuesday in early November, though early voting and mail-in ballot initiatives will mean many Americans will have already voted. Counting ballots will go on for weeks in some states.

Once all votes are counted, the results must be certified by Congress. Normally a pro-forma event, in 2021 Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building to stop the certification. He is on trial for his alleged role in the attack.

The new (well, newly re-elected) president will be sworn into office for his second term on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, DC.

Joe Biden, at 81, will be the oldest ever major-party presidential candidate, breaking his own record set in 2020. Mr Biden won a seat in the Senate at the age of 30 and held it for over three decades. He made failed bids for president in 1988 and 2008, and served as Barack Obama’s vice-president. Despite a reputation as a centrist Democrat, in office he has pushed to expand the state and lobbied for unions. He has also led an international coalition to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. Although he promises to “finish the job” if re-elected, many voters think the job may finish him.

Donald Trump’s extraordinary campaign follows his no less remarkable term as America’s 45th president, which concluded shortly after his supporters staged an armed attack on the Capitol. His alleged role in instigating the attack and a broader effort to overturn results of the 2020 election resulted in two criminal indictments, in federal court and Georgia state court. He faces two others, totalling 91 felony charges. The 77-year-old denies all wrongdoing. Mr Trump is a self-proclaimed billionaire, who made (and lost) much of his money in real estate, before he became a reality-TV star. This time his campaign pairs familiar culture-war issues (building a border wall, “left-wing gender insanity”) with fresh grievances (against the lawyers prosecuting his cases and the judges overseeing them).