Will Donald Trump win the 2024 Republican nomination?

Former President Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign is underway, but he's not the only person battling for the Republican nomination: former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, entrepreneur and "anti-woke" activist Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and others make up a crowded GOP field currently led by the former president.

Meanwhile, however, Trump is up against four historic indictments, one of which pertains to his alleged attempts to interfere with the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which resulted in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Another involves his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his private Florida resort. He was also indicted in Georgia on charges related to his actions during the 2020 election and is facing additional charges in New York for allegedly falsifying business records. With his competition and legal woes in mind, how likely is Trump to win the 2024 nomination?

Is Trump the 2024 Republican front-runner?

DeSantis at one time appeared to be Trump's main competition. The governor was reelected during the 2022 midterms in a landslide, but has been besieged by a campaign that The Washington Post described in August as "almost uniformly negative."

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As a result of DeSantis' lackluster performance, Trump still dominates the polls and is continuing to rise. A Sept. 25 CNN/University of New Hampshire poll with a 2.1% margin of error found DeSantis in fifth place, with just 10% of Republican respondents in New Hampshire likely to vote for him. This does not bode well for the governor given the weight and importance of the New Hampshire GOP primary. Nationally, FiveThirtyEight’s poll aggregate showed DeSantis trailing the former president by anywhere from 30 to 40 points as of Oct. 2. This is in line with a Sep. 20 national poll from Emerson College that found DeSantis trailing Trump 59% to 12%.

There's nothing in the Constitution that prohibits an indicted person, or even a convicted felon, from running for president, and among Republicans, Trump gained in the polls following his first indictment in April. While this wasn't the case during his second indictment, he did get a boost after his third in August; according to a RealClearPolitics national poll aggregation cited by Intelligencer, Trump's support was at 53.9% on Aug. 1, the day he was indicted for the third time. As of Aug. 13, it had risen to 54.2%. This is despite the fact that a majority of Americans — 65% — classified Trump's Jan. 6-related indictment as "serious" in an ABC News/Ipsos poll. In all, FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate had Trump holding a 55.4% national lead among Republicans as of Oct. 2, far outpacing any other GOP candidate. 

Trump's continued support could be partially because, given the four indictments now under his belt, "the novelty of a former leader of the United States being called a felon has somehow worn off," The New York Times reported. It has become clear from his steady polling numbers that "most Americans made up their minds about [Trump] long before prosecutors ... weighed in."

Who else is running?

Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who previously said she wouldn't run if Trump did, was one of the first to enter the race. And while she started off slow, polls have shown her creeping up, with the CNN/University of New Hampshire poll having placed her third in the state’s primary, behind Ramaswamy and Trump.

Ramaswamy entered the race as a dark-horse candidate, and The Associated Press noted that his candidacy is still a “longshot bid.” However, his poll numbers have been rising, which made him the primary target at the GOP’s first (and Trump-less) presidential debate. Ramaswamy, who wrote a book decrying “woke-ism” and pushed to eliminate affirmative action and various government agencies, placed second in New Hampshire in the CNN/University of New Hampshire poll with 13% support, ahead of DeSantis, Haley and Christie.

Fellow candidate Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, and Christie have both been openly critical of Trump. After the first indictment, Hutchinson told ABC News that the former president should drop out of the race. "I do believe if we're looking at the presidency and the future of our country, then we don't need that distraction," he said. It does not appear that this message is resonating, though, as most polls continue to show Hutchinson at the very bottom of the pack. Since the second indictment, Christie, a former prosecutor, has made many public remarks about Trump's handling of classified documents. What Christie is saying is "very, very important," Frank Bruni wrote in the Times. “He's telling the unvarnished truth about Trump, and he's the only candidate doing that. ... [H]e's artfully, aggressively and comprehensively making the case against Trump.” Christie’s poll numbers remain low, however; As of Oct. 2, FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate placed him at 2.8% nationally, though he polled at 11% in the CNN/University of New Hampshire survey. 

Scott, meanwhile, entered the race trying to paint himself as a moderate Republican who is a supporter of "traditional conservative values." GOP pollster Frank Luntz told The Guardian that Scott is "the exact opposite of Donald Trump, and that's why he is so intriguing. He is as nice and kind-hearted as Trump is tough and critical." However, Scott is polling even lower than Christie, with a FiveThirtyEight aggregate of 2.2% as of Oct. 2. 

Who doesn't want Trump to be the nominee?

In the 2022 midterms, Trump saw almost all of his endorsed candidates lose by large margins. "It's basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race, and it's like, three strikes, you're out," former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) told CNN.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) would also like to see a fresh face as the GOP's 2024 nominee and said in May she wants someone other than Trump or DeSantis at the top of the Republican ticket. Otherwise, "if that's the contest, Republicans are doomed," she declared. 

And it’s not just politicians that don’t want Trump to be the nominee. An April AP/NORC poll of 1,230 adults found that 44% of Republicans don’t want the former president to run for the White House again, in addition to 63% of independents who felt the same. However, that same poll found that 86% of Republicans also felt that the indictments against Trump were politically motivated. 

Who thinks Trump will be the nominee?

Quite a few Republicans. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the chair of the House Republican Conference, is one of the highest-ranking GOP members to publicly support Trump's 2024 bid. Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, a physician who was previously Trump's medical adviser, tweeted, "President Trump is the greatest President I've ever seen. I'm on his side 100%!" 

Other Republicans who have endorsed the former president include Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, 11 GOP senators, and 76 GOP House members, per Insider.