Who Is Running for President?

If you're confused as to who's running for President of the United States and who's not...don't be. Hopefully, by the time you're done reading this, whatever had you mixed-up will be ironed-out and you'll have more clarity on what's going on.

First, there are now only two serious candidates running for President of the United States in November:

• Running for re-election: Donald Trump
• Running to replace Trump: Joseph "Joe" Biden

Now that we're clear on that, let's look at what has led to some of the confusion, starting with Republican candidates running for office. Four candidates jumped in the race to challenge the incumbent (holder of office or post,) President Donald J. Trump.

• Former Massachusetts Governor - Bill Weld
• Former Illinois Congressman - Joe Walsh
• U.S. Representative - Mark Sanford
• Businessman - Rocky De La Fuente'

The Republican National Committee rallied behind Trump and voted to provide their undivided support. Because of this, a lot states canceled their primaries, while other states used the winner-take-all system (candidate with most votes among their counterparts) to officially hand Trump the nomination March 17, 2020.

On the other side of the aisle, the most diverse group of Democrat candidates in history put in a bid for the presidency. There were 29 candidates in all, which included seven minorities, six woman, and one gay man. Nineteen of them dropped out before the primaries began. Some of the most notable candidates included: Senator Cory Booker, Senator Kamala Harris, former Mayor of San Antonio Julian Castro, Mayor of Miramar, Florida Wayne Messam, Texas U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Democratic candidates who made the final cut, but dropped out of the race during the primaries were as follows:

• U.S. senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders
• U.S. representative from HI-02, Tulsi Gabbard
• U.S. senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren
• Former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg
• Former Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick
• U.S. senator from Minnesota,Amy Klobachar
• Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg
• Founder of Farallon Capital and Beneficial State Bank, Tom Steyer
• U.S. senator from Colorado, Michael Bennet
• Founder of Venture for America, Andrew Yang

The only Democrat still standing and currently running against Donald Trump is former Obama Vice President and U.S. Senator from Delaware, Joseph "Joe" Biden. As for why the names of candidates previously running for President being on the ballot, a good number of them didn't drop out of the race until after the Primary Elections began. Even though they're names remained on the ballot, the votes they got were basically wasted. Here's an example of what I mean. Watch the video below about the 2020 Super Tuesday Election.

Longtime Trump supporter and former rapper, Kanye West, registered to vote for the first time Monday July 6, 2020. In doing so, he has been trying to join the presidential race by working to get his name on the ballot in states that haven't held a primary yet. We'll see if he can get something off the ground between now and November. Looks like he's off to a very rough start.