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 recently 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 as “almost uniformly negative.”

As a result of DeSantis’ lackluster performance, Trump still dominates the polls and continues to rise. In an Aug. 10 poll from Cygnal — which has an “A” aggregation rating from FiveThirtyEight — DeSantis was actually polling in third place among GOP candidates with 10.4%, behind Vivek Ramaswamy at 11.4% and Trump at 53.3%. This was a significant drop for the governor from an Emerson College national poll of Republican primary voters released June 22, in which 59% said they supported Trump and 21% backed DeSantis. 

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 level 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 a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll. 

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. “The socialist left sees an opportunity to rewrite history,” she said in her campaign announcement. “China and Russia are on the march. They all think we can be bullied, kicked around. You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.” 

Ramaswamy, despite his rising numbers in some polls, remains a dark horse contender who said he’s running for president to eliminate the country’s “national identity crisis.” In his campaign announcement, Ramaswamy said: “We’ve celebrated our ‘diversity’ so much that we forgot all the ways we’re really the same as Americans.” He has written books decrying “woke-ism” and has pushed to eliminate affirmative action. Given the high-profile nature of the other candidates, though, The Associated Press described Ramaswamy’s push for the White House as a “longshot bid.”

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. 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 New York Times. “He’s telling the unvarnished truth about Trump, and he’s the only candidate doing that … he’s artfully, aggressively and comprehensively making the case against Trump, knocking down all rationalizations Trump has mustered and all the diversions he has contrived.”

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.” Other contenders include vanquished California recall candidate Larry Elder, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and more.

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 2024 GOP 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. Some GOP senators have already thrown their support behind non-Trump candidates, with South Dakota’s John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, endorsing Scott.

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%!” This sentiment was echoed by Kari Lake, who lost her 2022 campaign to become governor of Arizona. Trump, she tweeted, has her “complete and total endorsement.”

Updated Aug. 16, 2023: This piece has been updated throughout to reflect recent developments.