2024 Presidential Election (Swiss's World)

General Info
The 2024 United States presidential election was the 60th quadrennial American presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. The Republican ticket of incumbent United States senator from Texas Ted Cruz and former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiornia defeated the Democratic ticket of incumbent Secretary of Veterans Affairs Pete Buttigieg and former United States senator from Nevada Catherine Cortez Masto. Carly Fiornia became the second female vice president in history, with Pete Buttigieg becoming the first openly gay presidential nominee.

Incumbent President Kamala Harris ran for election but did not become the Democratic presidential nominee, the first time an incumbent president had not been nominated in almost 200 years. This is speculated to be due to lackluster performance, extreme far-right outrage after her inauguration, and her assumed to only have been been nominated as vice president by way of identity politics. The nomination of Pete Buttigieg caused the divide between progressive and moderate Democratic constituents to become even larger.

Ted Cruz barely won nomination by the Republican party against former President Donald Trump, presumably out of fear that Trump's ticket would suffer the same fate as it had in 2020. Unlike with Harris, most Trump supporters were fully behind Cruz after their candidate dropped out of the election. This is presumed to be due to Trump's repeated endorsement of Cruz.

Pre-election
Due to President Joe Biden 's old age and declining health, it became readily apparent in early 2023 that he would not be running for re-election, formally announced in March. He stated that he did not wish to resign and would still be capable of presidential duties until his term expiration in 2025. Many believed Kamala Harris would be the Democratic front-runner in his place. Tragically, Biden passed away soon after on April 19th following a stroke. Days after her inauguration, Harris formally announced her 2024 election bid. Ted Cruz and Pete Buttigieg followed shortly after in early May. Harris faced off against the likes of Gavin Newsom, Cory Booker, Don Lemon, Michelle Obama, Amy Klobuchar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Oprah Winfrey, Andrew Yang, Andrew Cuomo, and of course, Pete Buttigieg. Bernie Sanders chose not to run due to old age. In a surprising turn of events, Buttigieg blew Harris away in the primaries, officially nominated at the DNC. Cruz and Donald Trump, having yet again chosen Mike Pence as a running mate very early on, were the obvious front-runners. Mitt Romney ran alongside the two, being the target of most criticism during the Republican debates. He dropped out of the election when it became apparent he had little to no chance of scoring the nomination. Trump endorsed Cruz days after losing the primaries. Cruz nominated Carly Fiornia, his same running mate in 2016, exactly a week after his slim Super Tuesday victories. Much like Biden, Buttigieg wouldn't nominate his running mate, Cortez Masto, until much later, July 7th to be exact. Cruz and Buttigieg went on to have 3 debates, with their running mates having a vice presidential debate. Both Cruz and Buttigieg preformed much better than Trump and Biden, with common consensus that Cruz had eked out victory in all but 1. Despite this, Buttigieg retained his status as the one most likely to become the 48th president in odds and polls.

Election Night
The results of this election had been determined far earlier than in 2020, with election officials vowing to not make the same mistakes they had made in the previous election. In a repeat of 2016 and 2020, pollsters claimed that Buttigieg would win the presidential election by substantial margins, only to be proven wrong when Cruz was called to win Florida. After winning multiple other swing states, retaking the likes of Georgia and New Hampshire, the popular vote in his favor as well the seemingly low odds of Cruz winning the election soared, nearing 98% at the peak. The AP called the election for Ted Cruz in the early morning of November 6th, 2024, with Buttigieg respectfully conceding less than an hour after. Cruz won 49% of the popular vote compared to Buttigieg's 47%, as well as 286 electoral votes.

Aftermath
After hearing of the election of Ted Cruz, Republicans nationwide rejoiced. Understandably, most Democrats and some moderates were upset at election results. However, the backlash was not near as intense as that of the conservatives in 2020 and liberals in 2016. On December 16th, 2024, the electors voted and finalized the fact that Ted Cruz would win. Cruz was subsequently inaugurated on January 20th of 2025.