Donald J. Trump

Donald J. Trump, 78, is running for reelection a second time, after winning his first presidential bid in 2016 but losing in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump announced he was entering the race in November 2022, asserting that the “country is being destroyed before your eyes.”

He has pledged a return to the “America First” brand of politics that ushered him into office in 2016, after he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump, a real estate mogul and native New Yorker, ran for president after 14 seasons of headlining the NBC reality TV series “The Apprentice,” where contestants competed for the opportunity to work with him.

Trump has promised a return to the hardline immigration policies that defined his  time in office. He has vowed to launch a mass deportation effort, called for restarting construction of a U.S. southern border wall, and has said he will repeal the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, designation of Haitian refugees that allows them to remain in the United States with temporary legal status.

He has touted his appointment of three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, who ultimately were part of the 2022 conservative majority ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade’s federal abortion protections. Trump has argued that abortion access is an issue state legislatures should control instead of the federal government. He has said he would veto a national abortion ban should it pass Congress.

Trump has said he will implement tariffs on imported goods, a move economists contend could lead to an increase in prices, but which Trump maintains will encourage spending on U.S.-made products. He has also promised to repeal the cap on State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions that he signed into law in 2017 as part of the Republican tax reform bill and has proposed not taxing earnings made from tips.

Since leaving office, Trump has faced a swirl of legal battles. In May, jurors in Manhattan convicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments made to silence allegations of infidelity prior to the 2016 election. Sentencing has been delayed until after the election.

Trump has also faced questions over whether he will accept the results of the 2024 election, after never conceding his loss to Biden.