US election 2024 in pictures: Donald Trump, Elon Musk gather at Mar-a-Lago
As he pulls ahead in key states, Donald Trump has emerged at Mar-a-Lago with the SpaceX founder and other big names.
The 2024 race culminating Tuesday between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris has been marked by unprecedented tumult — and unforgettable images.
Here’s a look at the pivotal moments of this election season.
POLLING DAY
THE CAMPAIGN
Trump was the first candidate to announce a campaign for the Republican nomination, and he did so in the shadow of disappointing 2022 midterm election results for his party as well as calls to pass the torch.
Joe Biden, the nation’s oldest president, formally declared his candidacy five months later. Another notable contender was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
None of Trump’s rivals were able to consolidate the GOP electorate that seemed willing to move on from the former president. Trump skipped the debates. Biden barely campaigned but easily locked up his party’s nomination. Kennedy dropped out of the Democratic primaries before the first votes were cast and said he would campaign as an independent.
A rematch of 2020 loomed. Trump again campaigned on immigration, while Biden argued that “democracy is on the line,” pointing to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol by Trump supporters.
Trump was also facing legal troubles. He was indicted in four separate cases, two of which alleged he tried to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and said the prosecutions are politically motivated. In May, he was found guilty of falsifying records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star.
Some Democrats said the charges and convictions were evidence of Trump’s lack of fitness for office. The cases steeled support from Trump’s supporters. Each major court action prompted a wave of contributions to his campaign.
In June, Trump and Biden met in Georgia for a televised debate. Biden performed terribly, and in the weeks that followed Democrats began to call for the president to step out of the race.
Then, on July 13, the course of the campaign came within millimetres of a radical turn. A 20-year-old Pennsylvania man shot Trump in the right ear at a rally in Butler, Pa. As he was rushed from the stage, Trump raised his fist above his bloody face and told his supporters to “fight.”
Republicans held their nominating convention in Milwaukee days after the shooting. Trump tapped Sen. JD Vance (R., Ohio) to be his running mate, injecting a dose of relative youth into the campaign.
The Sunday after Republicans left Milwaukee, Biden announced he would end his campaign and endorsed Harris. She worked quickly to sew up support within the Democratic Party.
Biden appeared wistful as he explained his decision to step back in an Oval Office address.
Trump had a three-point polling lead over Biden in late July, but Harris’s entry into the race left his campaign scrambling to find its footing.
During an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump attacked Harris over her race, falsely suggesting his election rival only began identifying as a Black woman in recent years. In subsequent months he would repeatedly call her stupid.
One Democratic politician who attended the party’s convention in Chicago said it transformed “to a wedding from a wake” after Harris became the nominee. Democrats used their convention to further introduce the vice president and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Harris benefited from a postconvention enthusiasm bump, which she rode through a Sept. 10 debate. She put Trump on the defensive by provoking him over crowd sizes at his rallies and his felony convictions. Trump used the Biden administration’s record to attack Harris.
Trump, meanwhile, was boosted by the endorsements of Kennedy, who had dropped out of the race in August, and tech CEO Elon Musk.
Both candidates leaned on spectacle in the campaign’s final weeks, with events at a McDonald’s, Madison Square Garden and the Ellipse in Washington, D.C.
