2024 Republican candidates: Who’s running and how bad would they be for LGBTQ+ rights?
Donald Trump is the last remaining candidate for the Republican presidential nomination after former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley dropped out of the race. (Getty)
After battling it out for months on the campaign trail, Nikki Haley ended her 2024 presidential election bid. Now, Donald Trump is the only Republican left.
Speaking from a press conference on Wednesday (6 March), Haley said she had “no regrets” as she suspended her campaign. She added it was up to Trump to “earn the votes” of Republicans and “beyond” who didn’t support him.
Trump maintained his near-total dominance over Haley on Super Tuesday, garnering massive leads in several states. The former South Carolina only defeated Trump in two primary contents – Washington DC and Vermont.
Nikki Haley’s departure puts Trump on the road to claiming the Republican nomination unchallenged, gearing up a rematch with president Joe Biden at the November general election.
It’s was race that focused on LGBTQ+ rights, as hateful rhetoric and damaging talking points are were used on the GOP campaign trail and in the debates, so here’s your guide to the 2024 Republican candidates.
Donald Trump: The most anti-LGBTQ+ president in recent history
Despite being the first president – former or current – charged with criminal activity, Trump remains the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican candidate race. No other potential candidate has registered in the national polls close to Trump, who has a ravenous crowd of right-wing supporters in the US.
The former president opened his 2024 bid by promising to ban gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth, attacking hospitals that provide such treatments and pushing for a federal law recognising only two genders if he’s re-elected.
His four years in the Oval Office were marked by an intense attack on LGBTQ+ rights. He banned trans people from openly serving in the military, called on courts to legalise discrimination against queer people and rolled back Obama-era protections for transgender Americans under the Affordable Care Act.
Former Candidates
Nikki Haley: Outsider has a solid anti-LGBTQ+ fan base
Haley remained in the Republican race until an abysmal defeat to Trump at the Super Tuesday polls. Along the campaign train, she maintained her strong conservative track record to appeal to voters.
She opposed same-sex marriage as South Carolina governor, served as a United Nations ambassador under the Trump administration and claimed Biden’s support of trans inclusion in sports was an attack on women’s rights.
Thus far, Haley has used anti-LGBTQ+ talking points to keep her campaign in the headlines. She denounced DeSantis’ ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law – which restrictions LGBTQ+ discussions in schools – for “not going far enough” and misgendered social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Mike Pence: The worst vice president for LGBTQ+ people in recent times
The former vice president under Trump dropped out of the 2024 Republican race in October, saying it was just “not [his] time”. During his time on the campaign trail, Pence compared trans youth accessing life-saving gender-affirming healthcare to ‘kids getting a tattoo before they’re 18’.
Pence told the Des Moines Register that he would fully support a federal ban on trans healthcare and so-called “radical gender ideology” if he made it into the Oval Office.
The former congressman, Indiana governor and vice president to Trump has a track record of opposing LGBTQ+ rights. He strongly opposed same-sex marriages, voted against the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal and supported several anti-LGBTQ+ measures during his time in the Trump administration.
Ron DeSantis: Florida governor waging war on trans rights
The hard-right Florida governor styled himself as a younger, more electable alternative to Trump, who endorsed DeSantis for his current job. In a nearly five-minute long video on X/Twitter, released on Sunday (21 January), DeSantis ended his seven-month campaign, saying he “left it all out on the field”.
He told his supporters that he would’ve done anything – including “more campaign stops, more interviews” – if he thought it could “produce a favourable outcome”.
DeSantis is still lagging behind Trump in popularity, but he is seemingly gearing up for a tough race to see who ultimately takes the final spot in the 2024 presidential election.
The Republican governor opened his presidential bid by emphasising his credentials as a so-called culture warrior, attacking “woke” Democrats and pointing to his DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ+ history as proof of his worthiness to voters.
Where does Vivek Ramaswamy stand on LGBTQ equality?
The 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur and ‘anti-woke’ author ended his presidential campaign after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses on Monday (15 January). He told his supporters that there was “no path for [him] to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country”.
During his campaign runs, one of Ramaswamy’s main talking points was that he believes there are only two genders, which he’s even listed among the “truths” on his presidential campaign website, and he often speaks out against the alleged “trans cult in America”.
He faced backlash after he described being trans as. “mental health disorder” during the second GOP debate in September.
Ramaswamy has written books opposing corporate ‘wokeism’ and so-called identity politics, and he joined conservative voices denouncing Target’s LGBTQ+ Pride collection.
Asa Hutchinson
The former Arkansas governor suspended his White House bid after an abysmal outcome from the Iowa caucuses. Hutchinson said his stalwart conservative values and “telling the truth about the current frontrunner [Donald Trump] did not sell in Iowa” so he was pulling out of the race.
As governor of Arkansas, Hutchinson signed into law a trans sports ban; misgendered trans kids in a televised interview; approved a bill allowing doctors to refuse to treat LGBTQ+ patients based on religious or moral objections; and passed a revised religious freedom bill that could allow discrimination against queer people.
Chris Christie
The former New Jersey governor dropped out of the presidential race in January by continuing his history of throwing barbs at Trump. He vowed to make sure that he doesn’t “enable” Trump to “ever become president of the United States again”.
Christie previously criticised Trump for being “self-consumed” and “self-serving”.
During his time in politics, Christie said has been inconsistent in his support for the LGBTQ+ community. Christie consistently opposed same-sex marriage and vetoed a bill that would’ve allowed queer couples to get married in New Jersey while governor.
While signing New Jersey’s ban on conversion therapy, he said: “If someone is born that way, it’s very difficult to say then that that’s a sin.” Christie also vetoed a bill that would have allowed trans people in the state to change the gender marker listed on their birth certificates.
Tim Scott
The South Carolina senator entered the Republican presidential primary with promises to take on the “radical left”, revive America’s “culture of greatness” and bring faith and conservative policies to the White House.
Scott abruptly announced in November that he was dropping out of the 2024 Republican presidential campaign, saying it was “really clear” that voters were telling him that it wasn’t his time.
During his time in the Republican Party, Scott supported the US military’s reviled ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, opposed same-sex marriage and told Newsweek that he considers homosexuality to be morally wrong.
He also voted against the Respect for Marriage Act and introduced a bill targeting LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools. On his campaign website, Scott claimed Democrats are “replacing education with indoctrination” – damaging rhetoric used by Republicans to attack trans and LGBTQ+ people.
Ryan Binkley
The Texas business executive and pastor dropped out in late February, endorsing Trump for the nomination.
Throughout his time on the campaign trail, Binkley remained a long shot among the 2024 Republican candidates.
Binkley’s campaign website states that he wants to restore America’s “faith in God, freedom and each other”. The website for Create Church, which he founded alongside his wife and is a lead pastor, states that they believe marriage is a “sacred bond between one man and one woman”.
Doug Burgum
The Republican governor of North Dakota announced his candidacy in the Wall Street Journal, saying the US needed a “change in the White House”. However, he suspended his campaign in December after failing to gain traction with voters amid the crowded Republican primary field.
The 66-year-old was a software entrepreneur and Microsoft executive before becoming governor in 2016.
During his time in office, Burgum has signed into law bills banning trans students from participating in school sports, restricting what bathrooms trans people can use in certain facilities and allowing public school teachers and state government staff to ignore the pronouns of trans students and colleagues.
Perry Johnson
The Republican kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign amid the Conservative Political Action Conference in March and ended it quietly just a few months later in October. It came nearly a year after he was removed from the primary ballot in Michigan’s 2022 gubernatorial race due to invalid petition signatures.
Larry Elder
The conservative talk radio host ended his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in October, throwing his support behind Trump.
Elder has a long history of anti-LGBTQ+ remarks and was the top Republican opponent to California governor Gavin Newsom during the unsuccessful recall effort in 2021.
Will Hurd
In early October, the former Texas representative and a onetime CIA called it quits on his bid for the Oval Office. Hurd is a staunch critic of Trump, who he called a “lawless, selfish, failed politician”, and called on his supporters to back Haley in the race.
In 2019, Hurd was one of eight House Republicans who voted in favour of the Equality Act. During a recent appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Hurd said he wished his fellow party members would “focus their attacks on war criminals like Vladimir Putin, not [his] friends in the LGBTQ community”.
But he said the recent Supreme Court ruling siding with a Christian website designer who didn’t want to provide her services for LGBTQ+ weddings was “uncomfortable” but the “right call”.
Francis Suarez
The Miami mayor suspended his bid for the presidency in August, dropping out of the race after failing to qualify for the first Republican debate. He was the first Hispanic person to enter the 2024 race.
Suarez told NBC News he initially supported DeSantis’ ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, but he said expanding the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation to all grades was “excessive”. He said that he doesn’t “want little kids being taught about sexuality in the classroom”, but he wanted the US to be a “country that is pro-equal rights for the LGBTQ community”.
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