Nearly as soon as the midterm elections are over, the road to the 2024 US presidential election gets under way, and a number of candidates are already in the running.
In announcing his intention to run in the party's nomination process, former president Donald Trump promised to "make America great and glorious again.".
While he still enjoys support from Republican voters, his midterm campaign was underwhelming and made him more vulnerable, in part because Trump-backed candidates lost.
A group of Republican candidates, some of whom have previously supported the ex-president and who will be 78 in two years, are likely to mount a fierce challenge against him.
The first significant Republican candidate to commit to running against Mr. Trump was Nikki Haley, who announced her candidacy for president in the middle of February.
Nikki Haley, once regarded as one of the most promising young members of the Republican Party, has remained less public in recent years.
Ms. Haley, the youngest governor in the nation in 2009, was born to immigrants from the Punjabi Sikh community in South Carolina. After urging the South Carolina Capitol's Confederate flag to be taken down, she attracted widespread attention in 2015.
She admitted in 2016 that she was "not a fan" of Mr. Trump, but later agreed to accept his nomination for the position of US ambassador to the UN. Her time in that position was highlighted by her dramatic exit from a UN Security Council meeting as a Palestinian envoy was speaking.
The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has made a concerted effort to emulate Mr. Trump and is seen as a strong contender to unseat him at this early stage.
The largest margin in the state in more than 40 years, he easily won re-election in the midterm elections by more than 1 point 5 million votes.
The Harvard and Yale educated lawyer, who is 44 years old, is still a relative newcomer to US politics.
He had previously served in the US Navy and had deployed to Iraq. From 2013 to 2018, he served as a little-known representative in the House of Representatives.
But Mr. DeSantis has experienced a significant rise in popularity since taking office as governor in 2019, a position in which he positions himself as a fervent supporter of conservatism.
In the wake of racial justice demonstrations, he signed anti-riot laws, disregarded mask and vaccine requirements, and supported legislation that would have restricted the teaching of LGBT issues in primary schools. Republican voters in the state now outnumber Democrats for the first time during his administration.
By calling his rival "Ron DeSanctimonious" and threatening to divulge damaging information about him if he runs in 2024, Mr. Trump recently showed that he is paying close attention.
Before the Capitol riot of 2021 shattered their relationship, Mike Pence served as Mr. Trump's vice president for four years.
A talk radio host before entering politics, Mr. Pence is the son of a Korean War veteran.
He was chosen to the House in 2000 and held office there until 2013, identifying as a "principled conservative" and supporting the Tea Party movement.
From 2013 to 2017, he was also Indiana's governor. In that capacity, he signed legislation limiting abortion and preserving religious freedom as well as the largest tax cut in state history.
Because of his inclusion on the 2016 presidential ticket, Mr. Pence, 63, a born-again evangelical Christian, is credited with helping Mr. Trump win over evangelicals, a significant voting bloc.
He was regarded as a successful stand-in for the bomb-throwing Donald due to his calm demeanor and soft spoken manner. But after he declined to work to overturn the 2020 election results, Mr. Trump turned on him, accusing him of lacking "courage.".
"Hang Mike Pence!" was chanted by Trump supporters as they stormed the US Capitol in January 2021. They reportedly got as close to the vice president as 40 feet (12 meters) at one point.
Since then, the two have maintained their distance, with Mr. Pence supporting a number of Republican candidates in the 2021 midterm elections, including Brian Kemp for governor of Georgia, whose opponent Mr. Trump backed.
The Republican Party's third-highest ranking member in the House from 2019 to 2021 was the daughter of former vice president and presidential candidate Dick Cheney.
She took over her father's old seat in Congress in 2017 and voted in line with the Trump administration. She is a fiscal and social conservative with interventionist foreign policy views.
Although she repeatedly criticized Mr. Trump and voted to impeach him for his part in the Capitol riots on January 6, she lost Republican support as a result.
She lost her leadership position, received a formal reprimand, and is no longer accepted by the Wyoming Republican Party.
Ms. Cheney, 56, later joined the congressional committee looking into the Capitol riots and is now one of just two Republicans on the panel. She has taken the lead in the effort to hold Mr. Trump and others accountable as vice-chair.
She lost her job because of the position in August after the former president endorsed an opponent who defeated her by nearly 40% in the Wyoming primary.
However, Ms. Cheney continues to identify as a Republican and has vowed to go to any lengths "to help restore our party.".
In 2016, Mike Pompeo, then a congressman from Kansas, issued a stern warning that Mr. Trump would be "an authoritarian president who ignored our Constitution.".
He served in the House from 2011 to 2017. He is an Army veteran and the top graduate of the prestigious West Point military academy.
The Harvard-educated attorney would go on to work in the Trump administration as both the CIA director and secretary of state.
He participated in significant US foreign policy initiatives, from assisting in the planning of Mr. Trump's summits with Kim Jong-un of North Korea to aiding in the reversal of longstanding US policy toward Israel. He did, however, also court controversy, engaging in altercations with reporters and at least two ethics inquiries.
Glenn Youngkin's victory in the Virginia governor's race in 2021 delighted the Republican Party. He defeated a man who had been involved in Democratic politics since the 1980s as a political newcomer after working for 25 years at the private equity firm Carlyle Group.
Mr. Youngkin criticized partisan politics as "too toxic" and ran his campaign on a bipartisan platform in a state that has shifted toward Democrats in recent years.
However, the 55-year-old has engaged in controversial issues ever since he took office, including rescinding the state's Covid-19 restrictions and outlawing the teaching of critical race theory in schools.
In the midterm elections, he backed Republicans across the nation. He received backlash during a campaign stop for downplaying the violent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband and later issued an apology.
During the midterm elections, Florida's Rick Scott, a 70-year-old lawmaker, was tasked with aiding Republicans in taking back the Senate.
Despite failing to achieve that objective, he played a crucial role in the campaign, supporting and funding candidates across the nation and winning the favor of potential backers.
A former two-term governor of Florida, he has recently come under fire from Democrats for his proposals to significantly reduce the size of the federal government.
Scott Tim. The 57-year-old South Carolina resident is the first black Republican senator since 1979 and is a first-term member of both chambers of Congress.
Cruz, Ted. The Texas senator, 52, performed admirably in the Republican primary for the 2016 presidential election before finishing second to Mr. Trump.
Hogan, Larry. The moderate 66-year-old Republican and skin cancer survivor has been governor of Maryland, a state that supports Democrats, since 2015.
Abbott, Greg. The first wheelchair-using governor of Texas, Mr. Abbott, 65, has supported conservative policies ever since his election in 2014.
Ms. Kristi Noem. The 51-year-old first female governor of South Dakota attracted attention nationwide when she opposed Covid restrictions and has been eager to participate in national debates.
