Politics in 2024 was nothing short of unprecedented.
Now that the U.S. has put a bow on the year, Fox News Digital looks back on the biggest political news stories that turned Washington, D.C., on its head.
Biden’s drops out of presidential race at 11th hour after increasing scrutiny of his mental acuity
The year kicked off with President Biden in the driver’s seat of the Democratic Party as he keyed up a re-election effort in what was shaping up to be a second matchup against now-President-elect Donald Trump.
In February, however, Biden’s 81 years of age and mental acuity fell under public scrutiny after years of conservatives questioning the commander-in-chief’s mental fitness. Special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as vice president, announced he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’
The report renewed scrutiny over Biden’s mental acuity, which rose to a fever pitch in June after the president’s first and only presidential debate against Trump.
Biden faced backlash for a handful of gaffes and miscues in the days leading up to his debate against Trump, including former President Obama taking Biden’s wrist and appearing to lead him off a stage during a swank fundraiser, and also abroad when Italian Prime Minister Giogia Meloni guided Biden back to a group of world leaders when he appeared to wander off to give a thumbs-up to a parachutist during the G-7 summit.
When the big debate day arrived, Biden missed his marks repeatedly, tripping over his responses and appearing to lose his train of thought as he squared up against Trump. The disastrous debate performance led to an outpouring of both conservatives and traditional Democrat allies calling on the president to bow out of the race in favor of a younger generation.
The White House for weeks defiantly insisted that Biden would ‘absolutely not’ drop out of the race, with his communications team and campaign daily combating the claims and speculation.
On July 21, Biden issued a tweet that Sunday afternoon announcing he would bow out of the race.
Kamala Harris ‘installed’ as Democrat presidential nominee
Biden endorsed Vice President Harris to pick up the mantle shortly after dropping out of the race in a separate social media post published on X, formerly Twitter.
Biden’s exit from the race, when there were only about 100 days left before Nov. 5, was the first time the presumptive nominee of a major political party withdrew from the election after winning primaries.
Harris soon launched her truncated campaign, flanked by staffers from the Obama administration and campaigns and also a handful of holdovers from Biden’s campaign.
Harris earned the nomination of the party despite not running in the primaries, sparking some calls, including from Democrats, that the process was ‘undemocratic.’ High-profile Democrats from the Obamas to the Clintons threw their support behind Harris, while former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Harris’ nomination was fair by arguing the nomination process was ‘open’ and Harris ‘won it.’
‘We do not live in a dictatorship,’ left-wing group Black Lives Matter declared over the summer. ‘Delegates are not oligarchs. Installing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee and an unknown vice president without any public voting process would make the modern Democratic Party a party of hypocrites.’
Harris previously ran for the White House during the 2020 election cycle, but she dropped out in early December 2019, two months before the 2020 Iowa caucuses.
Trump assassination attempts
Before Trump was elected president, he faced two assassination attempts in July and September that rocked voters and the election cycle.
Trump took the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 for what was intended to be a rally in the crucial swing state. Then shots rang out.
Trump was seen dropping to the ground during the rally before he quickly stood up, a bloodied ear apparent, while surrounded by Secret Service agents.
‘Fight, fight, fight,’ Trump was seen shouting to the crowd with a raised fist as he was escorted off the stage.
One man, Corey Comperatore, lost his life while protecting his family from the attack, and two other people were seriously injured.
The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.
The attack unfolded just days before the Republican National Convention kicked off in Milwaukee. Despite initial speculation the RNC would be upended by the attempt, Trump appeared throughout the week with a patch over his injured right ear before formally accepting the nomination in a speech.
‘The amazing thing is that prior to the shot, if I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark and I would not be here tonight. We would not be together,’ Trump said in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.
‘Bullets were flying over us, yet I felt serene. But now the Secret Service agents were putting themselves in peril. They were in very dangerous territory,’ Trump continued. ‘Bullets were flying right over them, missing them by a very small amount of inches. And then it all stopped. Our Secret Service sniper, from a much greater distance and with only one bullet used, took the assassin’s life, took him out.’
Weeks later, on Sept. 15, Trump faced an assassination attempt while golfing at his Trump International Golf Club in Florida.
Trump was safely escorted from the green at his golf club in West Palm Beach that Sunday afternoon after suspect Ryan Routh allegedly pointed a rifle toward the 45th president just outside the perimeter of the club. Routh fled the scene but was apprehended shortly thereafter on I-95.
Routh allegedly waited in the bushes near Trump’s golf course for 12 hours ahead of the attempt on the former president’s life.
Routh has pleaded not guilty in the case, which includes charges such as the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate and assault on a federal officer. His attorneys are reportedly considering an insanity defense as court proceedings continue.
Trump’s conviction and political ‘comeback’
While juggling his successful re-election effort, Trump spent much of the year battling criminal charges and legal cases, including sitting trial for weeks in the New York v. Trump case.
Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Manhattan case in May. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office worked to prove that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to quiet her claims of an alleged affair with Trump in 2006.
Trump maintained his innocence in the case and called it a ‘sham’ and ‘witch hunt.’ The guilty verdict was slammed by both Trump and legal experts as an example of ‘lawfare’ promoted by Democrats in an effort to hurt his election efforts ahead of November.
Trump plowed ahead with his election effort despite the guilty verdict, completing a massive political comeback when he defeated Harris at the polls.
Heading into Election Day, the polls were tight and both Trump and Harris zeroed in on locking down votes in key battleground states, most notably Pennsylvania. Final results from the election were expected to take days, harkening back to the 2020 election cycle during the pandemic, but Trump’s decisive win was declared late on election night.
Trump took the stage to accept victory after Fox News projected he would win Pennsylvania, which carries 19 electoral votes, as well as Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina. Trump ultimately notched 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226 and also secured the popular vote.
‘Every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future. Every single day, I will be fighting for you. And with every breath in my body, I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America. That’s what we have to have. This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again,’ he said just before 2:30 a.m. after the election.
Anti-Israel protests erupt on college campuses
During last year’s college school year, agitators and student protesters flooded college campuses nationwide to protest the war in Israel, which also included spiking instances of antisemitism and Jewish students publicly speaking out that they do not feel safe on some campuses.
Radicals on Columbia University’s campus in New York City, for example, took over the school’s Hamilton Hall building, while schools such as UCLA, Harvard and Yale worked to clear spiraling student encampments where protesters demanded their elite schools completely divest from Israel.
Terrorist organization Hamas launched a war in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which initially fanned the flames of antisemitism on campuses in the form of protests, menacing graffiti and students reporting that they felt as if it was ‘open season for Jews on our campuses.’ The protests heightened to the point Jewish students at some schools, including Columbia, were warned to leave campus for their own safety.
On Penn’s campus, Fox News Digital exclusively reported in May that anti-Israel radicals were passing around multiple guides directing agitators on how to break into buildings, ‘escalate’ protests, create weapons and even administer first aid.
‘Let repression breed more resistance. We will not disavow any actions taken to escalate the struggle, including militant direct actions. Our notion of ‘safety’ in the imperial core is built on centuries of corpses, and this liberal framing of ‘safetyism’ prevents us from escalating and winning, which is our duty to Palestine and us all. We keep us safe by escalating. Don’t hesitate to take more risk,’ one how-to guide dubbed ‘FLOOD THE GATES: ESCALATE’ read.
The college protests and war in Israel became a focal point of the presidential race as well as down-ballot races, with Republicans repeatedly condemning antisemitism on college campuses and demanding peace be restored to colleges.
College administrators from top schools such as UCLA, Rutgers and Northwestern were grilled by lawmakers over their handling of antisemitism on campus, while Trump warned school leaders if they allow antisemitism to run rampant, they could lose accreditation.