You know DeSantis and Pence. But who are the other candidates in the GOP debate?
The first Republican primary debate of the 2024 presidential election season is set to air on Fox News at 9 p.m. on Wednesday night, with eight candidates participating.
The current front-runner for the GOP nomination, former President Donald Trump, opted not to attend the debate, which is sanctioned by the Republican National Committee.
Here’s a look at the candidates who will be on stage:
Ron DeSantis
DeSantis, 44, is the current governor of Florida. He represented a northeast Florida congressional district for nearly six years before running for governor. He previously served in the Navy and graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School. He’s serving a second term as Florida’s governor while running for president and trails Trump in national polls, holding the second-place spot in national polls for the Republican nomination.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy, 38, is an entrepreneur and first-time candidate for office. He founded and ran the biotech company Roivant for a handful of years and is the author of Woke Inc., a book about American politics and business. He graduated from Harvard University and Yale Law School. Although he has not held a position in politics before, a Real Clear Politics average of national polls places him third in the race for the Republican nomination, behind DeSantis.
Mike Pence
Pence is the former Vice President of the United States, having served under Trump. He was a member of the U.S House of Representatives for over a decade and was at one point the governor of Indiana. The lawyer, 64, has distanced himself from Trump since their loss in the 2020 presidential election. He currently is behind Ramaswamy in national polls.
Tim Scott
Scott is a U.S Senator from South Carolina and is the first African American to be elected as a Senator from the South since the Reconstruction era, according to USA Today. He was formerly a member of the U.S House of Representatives and served on the Charleston County Council. Scott, 57, graduated from Charleston Southern University with a degree in political science and previously worked as an insurance agent.
Nikki Haley
Haley is the former governor of South Carolina and was a United States ambassador to the United Nations during Trump’s presidency. Haley, 51, also served in the South Carolina House of Representatives before she became the first female governor of the state. She graduated from Clemson University and is the first Indian American to serve in a presidential cabinet.
Chris Christie
Christie, who is the former governor of New Jersey, is running for president for the second time. Before he became governor he was the U.S Attorney for New Jersey, a position to which he was appointed by then-President George W. Bush. Among candidates seeking the Republican nomination, Christie has been Trump’s harshest critic. While he had an unsuccessful run for president back in the 2016 election season, one recent poll found that he has managed to catch DeSantis for the second-place spot in New Hampshire.
READ MORE: Christie on DeSantis: ‘People are really beginning to wonder what the hell he stands for’
Asa Hutchinson
Hutchinson, 72 , is the former governor of Arkansas and served as a U.S Representative for Arkansas’s Third congressional district. He was the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration and later appointed to work in the Department of Homeland Security during George W. Bush’s presidency. At the beginning of his political career, he was appointed as a U.S attorney in Arkansas by Ronald Reagan.
Doug Burgum
Burgum, 67, is the current two-term governor of North Dakota and a longtime entrepreneur. Prior to becoming governor, Burgum had no political experience. He was the president of a software company that he later sold to Microsoft.
