Kamala Harris – Democratic Party
Kamala Harris was born Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California. Harris is the current Vice President serving in the Biden Administration. She was the first woman, Black American and Asian American to hold the position. Her political career began when she was voted to be San Francisco’s Attorney General in 2004 and oversaw the first same-sex marriage after Proposition 8 was overturned. In 2010, she was elected as Attorney General for the state of California and served in the position until 2017 when she was sworn into the Senate.
During her presidential campaign Harris has voiced support for continuing many of Biden’s measures. She hopes to provide tax credits to middle-class and lower-income families, lower drug costs and eliminate “junk fees.” Harris has not yet issued an immigration policy platform but has pushed for an “earned” path to citizenship for immigrants. A large part of Harris’s campaign is her push for abortion rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Earlier this year she created the Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO), also known as the Red Flag law, that allows a court to temporarily seize a person’s firearms if they are deemed a threat to themselves or others.
Tim Walz is Harris’s running mate for the 2024 election. Walz currently serves as the governor of Minnesota.
Donald Trump – Republican Party
Donald Trump was born June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York. Trump served as president in 2016-2020. In 2020, he ran for reelection but lost to current President Joe Biden. His background prior to the White House was primarily in real estate development over a range of properties including casinos, golf courses and hotels. During his first term as President, he oversaw Supreme Court and other federal judicial appointments, increased the military budget, worked on criminal justice reform and worked to reduce prescription drug prices. If Trump wins the 2024 Presidential Election, he will be the second person to win two nonconsecutive terms. He is also the first president to be impeached twice during his time as Commander in Chief.
Trump wants to continue his efforts of cutting taxes that he began in 2017 and end taxes on Social Security benefits. His view of abortion is that it should be up to individual states, according to a video on his Truth Social social media site that said, “The states will determine by vote of legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land.” For Trumps’ immigration policies, he plans to reinstate his border policies including a program that requires migrants to stay in another country while their asylum cases are being reviewed.
JD Vance is Trump’s running mate for the 2024 election. Vance currently serves in the U.S. Senate for the state of Ohio.
Chase Oliver – Libertarian Party
Chase Oliver was born August 16, 1985, in Nashville, Tennessee and won the Libertarian nomination after seven rounds of voting at the party’s convention. Oliver previously worked in the restaurant industry and was a political activist who opposed the war in Iraq in 2010. In 2020, Oliver was the Libertarian nominee for Georgia’s 5th Congressional District and the party’s nominee for Georgia Senate in 2022. Oliver wants to withdraw the U.S. from all foreign conflicts and cut support for Israel and Ukraine. He wants to allow states to oversee education and dissolve the federal Department of Education. Oliver’s running mate is Mike ter Maat, a member of the Libertarian Party living in Florida.
Jill Stein – Green Party
Jill Stein was born May 14, 1950, in Chicago, and is the Green Party’s presidential candidate for the third time. She ran for president in 2012 and 2016 and was the nominee for Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth in 2006. Stein’s campaign is based around her climate policy and wants to push to achieve zero carbon emissions in the U.S. on a faster timeline than the Democratic party has suggested. She hopes to withdraw support from Israel and Ukraine and provide free public education from pre-K to college. Stein chose Rudolph “Butch” Ware as her running mate, an Associate Professor from UC Santa-Barbara.
Other Candidates
Also on the ballot in Idaho are Independents Shiva Ayyadurai, Claudia De la Cruz, Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Randall Terry, and Constitution Party Candidate Joel Skousen.