Americans hate—or claim to hate—their politicians, but even by those standards, the early shape of the 2024 presidential race is a little bizarre. More than 20 months out from the election, Americans consistently say they don’t want to see a rematch of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And yet the most likely outcome today is a rematch of Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

As Biden’s political fortunes have risen since late 2022, Democratic elected officials have slowly come around to the idea that he’s likely to be the nominee again next year, but Democratic voters remain skeptical, as I wrote recently. Still, they’re likely to get Biden, thanks in part to the advantage of incumbency.

On the Republican side, Trump looks weaker than he has at any time since shortly after he entered the 2016 race. His overall favorability is low, but that’s not new—he’s never won the national popular vote, and many of his chosen candidates have lost. More worryingly from the Mar-a-Lago point of view, a good chunk of Republicans now seem ready to move on from Trump, and he hasn’t managed to clear the field of rivals. Nikki Haley, who vowed not to run if he did, changed her mind. Ron DeSantis has not declared but seems sure to, and poses a larger electoral threat. Yet Trump still manages to top primary polls with a plurality of support.

How did we end up in such a situation? What in the structure of contemporary American politics led us to the cusp of a clash of meh? One easy answer is incumbency. Not since fellow Democrat Franklin Pierce in 1852, when Biden was just a wee lad, has a sitting president lost his party’s nomination. (That’s a joke, by the way.) Trump is not in office, but he is a sort of demi-incumbent as the most recent Republican president, a status he has reinforced with his false claims that he actually won in 2020.

Political scientists I asked about this offered a couple of additional, nuanced views. Lee Drutman, a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America, told me that the increased ideological unity within each of the two parties might explain the rise of unpopular standard-bearers. For most of U.S. history, the parties were a little more mixed, and a large portion of affiliated voters might still consider voting for a candidate of the other party.

“That kept it so both parties would nominate candidates that were broadly appealing to a larger swath of the country,” he said. Now the real prize is to win the primary, because once you’re the nominee, the party will coalesce around you, no matter what—a point that Trump 2016 and Biden 2020 both proved. “As the parties have polarized and separated, what’s happened is that while the parties remain internally fractious, what unites them more than ever is hatred of the other party.”

Julia Azari, a political-science professor at Marquette University, made a dovetailing point about the primary process, which has changed since the mid-20th century. Once largely under the control of the party organizations, it’s now much more open and small-d democratic—which ironically can produce candidates voters don’t actually love. “I think the free-for-all nature of presidential primaries makes it easier for candidates who can command roughly 40 percent of the primary vote to win the nomination while the rest of the field is fractured,” she wrote in an email. “In a weird way, it would be easier to navigate intra-party divisions if the parties had clearer and more organized factions that could consolidate around candidates with similar views and bargain at the nomination stage to incorporate multiple ideological perspectives.”

Once a candidate emerges from that process, he or she can rely on the party rallying together. As Biden likes to say, “Don’t compare me to the almighty; compare me to the alternative.” And if it comes down to Trump and Biden, lots of voters from both parties will be swallowing hard and doing just that.

This cheat sheet will track who’s in, out, up, and down in the 2024 races. It will be updated as the campaign develops, so check in regularly.

DEMOCRATS (Joshua Roberts / Getty) Joe Biden

Who is he?
After decades of trying, Biden is the president of the United States.

Is he running?
Not officially, but in every other respect, yes. Every time he’s been asked, he says he expects to run, and when his longtime aide Ron Klain departed as chief of staff, Klain said he’d be there “when” Biden runs in 2024. An announcement could come soon, now that the State of the Union has passed.

Why does he want to run?
Biden has always wanted to be president and is proud of his work so far; he also seems to believe that he may be the only person who can defeat Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup.

Who wants him to run?
There’s the catch. Some prominent Democrats support his bid for a second term, but voters have consistently told pollsters they don’t want him to run again.

Can he win the nomination?
If he runs, it’s probably his for the taking. No incumbent president has lost the nomination in the modern era, and Biden has pushed through changes to the Democratic-primary process that make him an even more prohibitive favorite.

What else do we know?
Biden is already the oldest person elected president and to serve as president, so a second term would set more records.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty) Kamala Harris

Who is she?
Harris is the vice president of the United States.

Is she running?
No, but if Biden does not, she’s expected to be the favorite.

Why does she want to run?
One problem with her 2020 presidential campaign was the lack of a clear answer to this question. Perhaps running on the Biden-Harris legacy would help fill in the blank.

Who wants her to run?
Some Democrats are excited about the prospect of nominating a woman of color, but generally Harris’s struggles as a candidate and in defining a role for herself (in the admittedly impossible position of VP) have resulted in nervousness about her as a standard-bearer.

Can she win the nomination?
It’s too soon to tell, but she’d start with an advantage if Biden sits this out.

(Matthew Cavanaugh / Getty) Pete Buttigieg

Who is he?
Mayor Pete is Secretary Pete now, overseeing the Department of Transportation.

Is he running?
No, but he would also be a likely candidate if Biden bows out.

Why does he want to run?
Just as he was four years ago, Buttigieg is a young, ambitious politician with a moderate, technocratic vision of government.

Who wants him to run?
Buttigieg’s fans are passionate, and Biden showed that moderates remain a force in the party.

Can he win the nomination?
Possibly.

(Scott Olson / Getty) Bernie Sanders

Who is he?
The senator from Vermont is changeless, ageless, ever the same.

Is he running?
No, but if Biden doesn’t, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t seriously consider another go. A top adviser even says so.

Why does he want to run?
Sanders still wants to tax billionaires, level the economic playing field, and push a left-wing platform.

Who wants him to run?
Sanders continues to have the strong support of a large portion of the Democratic electorate, especially younger voters.

Can he win the nomination?
Two consecutive tries have shown that he’s formidable, but can’t close. Maybe the third time’s the charm?

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty) Gretchen Whitmer

Who is she?
Whitmer cruised to a second term as governor of Michigan in 2022.

Is she running?
Say it with me: No, but if Biden doesn’t, she might.

Why does she want to run?
It’s a little early to know, but her reelection campaign focused on abortion rights.

Who wants her to run?
Whitmer would check a lot of boxes for Democrats. She’s a fresh face, she’s a woman, and she’s proved she can win in the upper Midwest against a MAGA candidate.

Can she win the nomination?
Perhaps.

(Lucas Jackson / Reuters) Marianne Williamson

Who is she?
If you don’t know Williamson from her popular writing on spirituality, then you surely remember her somewhat woo-woo Democratic bid in 2020.

Is she running?
Not officially, but she has visited New Hampshire and tells The New York Times she’s considering a run, Biden or not.

Why does she want to run?
She told the Times she wanted to give voters a choice. “The question I ask myself is not ‘What is my path to victory?’ My question is ‘What is my path to radical truth-telling?’ There are some things that need to be said in this country.”

Who wants her to run?
Williamson has her fans, but she doesn’t have a clear political constituency.

Can she win the nomination?
Nah.

(Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune / Getty) J. B. Pritzker

Who is he?
The governor of Illinois is both scion of a wealthy family and a “nomadic warrior.”

Is he running?
If Biden, etc.

Why does he want to run?
After years of unfulfilled interest in elected office, Pritzker has established himself as a muscular proponent of progressivism in a Democratic stronghold.

Who wants him to run?
Improbably for a billionaire, Pritzker has become a darling of the Sanders-style left, as well as a memelord.

Can he win the nomination?
Maybe.

REPUBLICANS (Joe Raedle / Getty) Donald Trump

Who is he?
You know him and you love him. Or hate him. Probably not much in between.

Is he running?
Yes. Trump announced his bid to return to the White House at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022.

Why does he want to run?
Revenge, boredom, rivalry, fear of prosecution, long-standing psychological hang-ups.

Who wants him to run?
A big tranche of the GOP are still all in on Trump, but it’s a little hard to tell how big. Polling shows that his support among Republicans is all over the place, but he’s clearly not a prohibitive front-runner.

Can he win the nomination?
Yes, but past results are no guarantee of future success.

What else do we know?
More than we could possibly want to.

(Joe Raedle / Getty) Ron DeSantis

Who is he?
The second-term governor of Florida, DeSantis was previously a U.S. representative.

Is he running?
Not officially, but clearly the answer is yes. DeSantis is getting a campaign and super PAC up and running, marshaling donors, and inserting himself into national politics. He reportedly might not announce until May or June.

Why does he want to run?
DeSantis offers the prospect of a synthesis of Trump-style culture war and bullying and the conservative politics of the early 2010s Republican Party.

Who wants him to run?
Members of the Republican establishment who want a pugilistic alternative to Trump, disaffected MAGA types.

Can he win the nomination?
No one quite knows how a Trump-DeSantis battle will play out, but it seems very possible.

(Roy Rochlin / Getty) Nikki Haley

Who is she?
Haley, the daughter of immigrants, was governor of South Carolina and then ambassador to the United Nations under Trump.

Is she running?
Yes. She announced her campaign on February 14, saying, “Time for a new generation.”

Why does she want to run?
Perhaps as a MAGA-friendly alternative to Trump? It’s hard to say, as my colleague Tim Alberta has chronicled. Haley served under Trump, condemned him over January 6, said she wouldn’t run if he ran, and now is running anyway.

Who wants her to run?
That’s also hard to say, but if DeSantis stumbles in the spotlight, she could make a play for his supporters.

Can she win the nomination?
Dubious.

(Alex Wong / Getty) Asa Hutchinson

Who is he?
Hutchinson, a longtime member of Congress, is now governor of Arkansas.

Is he running?
It sure looks like it. He’s been making the rounds and having the conversations one has if one is going to run, and he says he will probably decide by April.

Why does he want to run?
At one time, Hutchinson was a right-wing Republican—he was one of the managers of Bill Clinton’s impeachment—but as the party has changed, he finds himself closer to the center. He’s been very critical of Trump, saying he disqualified himself with his attempts to steal the election.

Who wants him to run?
Some old-school Republicans would welcome his candidacy, but it’s hard to imagine a groundswell.

Can he win the nomination?
Unlikely.

(Drew Angerer / Getty) Larry Hogan

Who is he?
Hogan left office this year after serving two terms as governor of Maryland.

Is he running?
He says he’s giving a campaign “very serious consideration.”

Why does he want to run?
Hogan argues that his experience of governing a very blue state as a Republican is a model: “We’ve been really successful outside of Washington, where everything appears to be broken and nothing but divisiveness and dysfunction.” He’s also a vocal critic of Donald Trump.

Who wants him to run?
Moderate, business-friendly “Never Trump” Republicans love Hogan.

Can he win?
Hard to imagine.

(John Locher / AP) Chris Sununu

Who is he?
The governor of New Hampshire, he’s the little brother of former Senator John E. Sununu and son of former White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu.

Is he running?
“Maybe I run, maybe I don’t,” he said in early February. But he passed on a Senate run last year and just created a fundraising vehicle that typically presages a candidacy.

Why does he want to run?
Sununu seems disgusted by a lot of Washington politics and sees his success in New Hampshire, a purple-blue state, as a model for small-government conservatism.

Who wants him to run?
Trump-skeptical Republicans, old-school conservatives.

Can he win the nomination?
Maybe.

(David Becker / The Washington Post / Getty) Tim Scott

Who is he?
A South Carolinian, Scott is the only Black Republican senator.

Is he running?
Maybe. Scott has visited Iowa and considered a campaign, and says he doesn’t plan to run for another Senate term.

Why does he want to run?
Unlike some of the others on this list, Scott doesn’t telegraph his ambition quite so plainly, but he’s built a record as a solid Republican. He was aligned with Trump, but never sycophantically attached.

Who wants him to run?
Scott’s Senate colleagues adore him.

Can he win the nomination?
Who knows? The soft-spoken Scott is untested in this kind of campaign.

(Scott Olson / Getty) Mike Pompeo

Who is he?
Pompeo, a former member of Congress, led the CIA and was secretary of state under Trump.

Is he running?
Most likely. He’s released a campaign-style memoir, though he had to blurb it himself, and has pointedly distanced himself from Trump on some issues.

Why does he want to run?
Pompeo has always been ambitious, and he seems to think he can combine MAGA proximity with a hawkish foreign-policy approach.

Who wants him to run?
That’s not entirely clear.

Can he win the nomination?
Maybe, but probably not.

(Misha Friedman / Getty) Glenn Youngkin

Who is he?
Youngkin, the former CEO of the private-equity Carlyle Group, was elected governor of Virginia in 2021.

Is he running?
He hasn’t said, but he’s been traveling to stump for Republicans and meet with donors, and he’s limited to a single term as governor.

Why does he want to run?
Youngkin is a bit of a cipher; he ran largely on education issues, and has sought to tighten abortion laws in Virginia, so far to no avail.

Who wants him to run?
Republicans who see him as able to run on Trumpy cultural issues while keeping some distance from Trump.

Can he win the nomination?
Possibly.

(Megan Varner / Getty) Mike Pence

Who is he?
The former vice president, he also served as governor of Indiana and U.S. representative.

Is he running?
Pretty likely, though he hasn’t declared.

Why does he want to run?
Pence has long harbored White House dreams, and he has a strong conservative-Christian political agenda. His time as Trump’s VP both makes him more plausible and probably rules him out, because he’s fallen afoul of his old boss.

Who wants him to run?
Conservative Christians, rabbit lovers.

Can he win the nomination?
It’s hard to see it happening.

The FBI is currently conducting a search of former Vice President Mike Pence's home in Indiana, a source familiar with the situation tells CNN.

During the past century or so, social scientists have observed that politics is, like sand after a day at the beach, in everything. It is especially present where you don’t think you’ll find it. You think you’ll find it on the campaign trail and on cable news—these are your beach towels and the floor mats of your car. But how the hell did it get into the glove compartment—or, in universities, into the math department? Rochelle Gutierrez, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has pioneered the teaching of “mathematx,” a form of math education attuned to politically marginalized groups. Politics is everywhere, and always has been.

Another feature of a day at the beach is that afterward, I feel like taking a shower. A similar impulse sometimes accompanies my reading of the work of Christopher F. Rufo, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and one of the most gifted conservative polemicists of his generation. His signature tactic is to draw attention to his enemies at their moments of extreme overreach, often on issues of gender and race. More recently, he has opened a southern front. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appointed him to the board of New College, a tiny public liberal-arts school, and Rufo has announced his intention to rid the place of leftist excesses.

Here, I offer a qualified defense of Rufo’s initiative. The grossest aspect of his work is his villainization of individuals—people who, like the tatted-up social-media addicts and priggish schoolteachers featured on the Libs of TikTok account, are hardly the best advocates for their cause. Picking weak targets is dishonorable. But a public college is not a weak target, and if Rufo wants to challenge an entrenched bureaucracy, then he will have a fair fight. I am curious as to how it will turn out.

Many institutions of higher learning ask faculty applicants to write a statement of commitment not just to diversity, equity, and inclusion but to an extreme form of it. The universities’ publicly stated positions imply that there is only one proper way to interpret the DEI trinity: through the concept of “anti-racism,” which may not mean what you think it means. Anti-racists argue that “the only remedy for past discrimination is present discrimination”—that is, not ignoring race but focusing on it with renewed vigor and treating people differently depending on their skin color.

Discerning applicants know not to say that they will treat students of different races and backgrounds equally. Academic jobs are rare, so woe to any applicant who makes this error and thereby expresses a political view that runs against the policies plastered all over the university’s website. Hiring committees who want to bring on such a heretic will have to explain to the dean why the campus should tolerate a professor who holds these forbidden views, and who is too dense or too ornery to hide them.

Rufo has vowed to eradicate all oaths to such doctrines and to replace the DEI office with a much smaller office of color blindness. Additionally, he and DeSantis have moved to eliminate certain ideas from the university system—most famously, critical race theory and gender theory.

On the latter point—forbidding particular ideas—I align myself with Justice William O. Douglas: “The State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge.” Indeed, I would protect more than just knowledge: The state shouldn’t even stop professors from teaching wicked and obvious lies. Politicians who try to dictate the boundaries of knowledge generally end up as villains or buffoons—book-burning Nazis on the one hand, rubes like the 19th-century Indiana legislators who resolved that π = 3.2 on the other.

But the demolition of DEI as a bureaucratic force is another matter. Critics have accused Rufo of trying “to turn [New College] into a space of extremist indoctrination”—as if a campus with a de facto ideological test for employment is not already political. Whether that ideological test is valid is unsettled in the general public, at least judging by the controversy Rufo has kicked up so far.

It is a simple step, to go from believing that politics is everywhere to believing that because it is everywhere, the politics may as well be one’s own politics rather than one’s enemy’s—to make politics not just omnipresent but hyper-partisan. Curiously, though, those who have spent decades saying that politics is everywhere seemed to have been caught flat-footed when it arrived in the form of Rufo. Last week, when Rufo and another trustee, Jason “Eddie” Speir, showed up to talk to New College’s faculty about their plans, the provost tried to cancel the event for security reasons. She alleged that the event “put our community at risk,” because someone wrote in to say that trustees should “MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE A FLAK JACKET ON.” (It’s not even obvious that this is a threat. The message is certainly menacing, but it would be more menacing if it expressed a hope that Rufo not wear a flak jacket.) Rufo, of course, treated the threat as serious, which allowed him to insist in Churchillian fashion that the event go forward. Then he used the occasion to humiliate the provost, calling her an example of the censorious crybabies whom he had come to relieve of their responsibility.

If you want politics, this is it. It’s playing dirty pool. It’s grandstanding and humiliation. It is a quest for dominance first, and truth if and when we get around to it. Rufo has argued that universities’ embrace of DEI follows what the activist and sociologist Rudi Dutschke called the “long march through the institutions.” Rather than smash governments and universities apart, Dutschke suggested, revolutionaries should burrow deep inside them, master their workings, and effect change like deep-cover Cold War moles. Rufo sees a revolution in racial politics that was accomplished not by convincing the public but by capturing the administration of universities, and instituting large and unpopular changes from within. This process was as filthy and political as appointing Rufo as a trustee. It was accomplished sneakily: No one ever voted for “anti-racism.”

They did, however, vote for DeSantis for some reason, and, by extension, for his apostle Rufo. Politics, man. And winning elections has consequences. The consequences need not be fatal for the anti-racist left. Advocates of DEI could welcome the chance to defend it in public against a fierce opponent whose power depends on an elected official. Floridians, I assume, do not want to see their universities wrecked or made hostile to minorities. If DEI is a serious defense against that happening, then Rufo’s opponents should demonstrate that a disaster is indeed at hand. Faculty who think their work depends on DEI could also create a disaster through mass civil disobedience. Rufo swaggers and treats quasi-threats against him as an opportunity to score points. New College community members are already playing the same game, by suggesting that Rufo is responsible for hypothetical violence by groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

As a political appointee, Rufo is especially vulnerable to these tactics and to being held responsible for whatever happens next. One of the healthiest aspects of political control is that all success and all failure can be concentrated in one individual. A bureaucracy contains many warrens and crannies where the champions of a policy can hide. Most of those university DEI statements are, tellingly, unsigned. Rufo is a political appointee interfering politically in a highly political environment—his initiative could go badly for him and for his governor. A wise politician should exercise control over academia sparingly. Think of the forbearance of a modern constitutional monarch, who cuts ribbons and attends parades but goes decades without meddling in the affairs of her domain. Meddle too much, and your subjects start holding you to account for potholes and bad calls at the Super Bowl.

“These are public institutions, supported by the taxpayers, and governed by the legislature [and] public officials,” Rufo told an audience in Florida recently. “The deeper importance of this initiative is reestablishing public control and public authority over the public universities.”

As long as his initiative is also the subject of public scrutiny, it will at least have the positive effect of subjecting to debate a revolution that has hitherto occurred creepingly, without the vigorous open discussion that accompanied, say, affirmative action. Rufo is smart enough to know that the median voter is uncomfortable with DEI in its current form and perhaps also miffed that public institutions have adopted it as dogma without more public debate. The partisans of DEI now have their chance, when the debate takes place in the bright Florida sun, to change the median voter’s mind.

Two Indiana men have been arrested for the murder of a 17-year-old girl whose 1975 drowning death remained a cold case until evidence linked the suspects to the victim in a decades-long investigation, police said.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) conducted an investigation into a postgame incident involving the Indiana Pacers traveling party following a game between the team and the Memphis Grizzlies on January 29.

An Indiana man died after falling from a cliff in Puerto Rico while trying to make a video for TikTok, according to his family.

The FBI is expected to search former Vice President Mike Pence's house in Indiana and office in Washington for additional classified materials soon, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.