At 6.30 am IST on Thursday, August 24, eight candidates will take to the stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in what will be the first face-off between Republican White House hopefuls. The first Republican presidential showdown will see Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, former US vice president Mike Pence, and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, locking horns for the first time this election cycle.

To qualify for the debate, candidates needed to have reached minimum thresholds in national or state-level polls and received donations from at least 40,000 unique donors.

With Donald Trump — the current leader in Republican primary polls — announcing that he will be skipping the debate, all eyes will be trained on Ramaswamy and DeSantis, who are locked in second place in nationwide polls.

The debate will officially set the Republican Party on the long road to picking a nominee and capturing the White House — the executive branch of the US government. The Republicans currently control the US House of Representatives. There will be multiple televised debates, primaries, and caucuses — not to mention the candidates' own campaign speeches — before a nominee is picked at the Republican National Convention mid-2024.

Ramaswamy, an anti-immigration, anti-woke, anti-war candidate, has recently captured all attention after he zoomed from 2 percent in the polls to 10 percent. DeSantis, who announced his bid for the presidency a few weeks ago after months of speculation, saw his numbers drop. Meanwhile, Chris Christie and Nikki Haley, whose previous runs for the White House were unsuccessful, will also look to make a mark at the debate.

On the Democrats' side, President Joe Biden is currently the presumptive nominee, though he is not unchallenged — Robert F. Kennedy Jr, son of former US attorney Robert F. Kennedy, and nephew of former president John F. Kennedy — has announced he would challenge Biden, though it is unprecedented for a sitting president not to secure his party's nomination.

That said, Biden, who at 80 years old is the oldest to hold the highest office in USA, is not doing extremely well right now, at least in public perception. According to Fivethirtyeight.com, Joe Biden's job approval rating currently sits at 41 percent. The 46th US president has consistently polled lower than any Democrat president in nearly 80 years, and is among the lowest compared to his immediate predecessors.

High stakes for Republicans and Democrats

The election in November 2024 is not just about who will become (or remain) the US president. It is also about who will control US Congress. Every two years, all 435 members of the House of Representatives, and a third of the 100-member Senate go to the polls. Currently, it is a divided US Congress, with the Republicans controlling the House and the Democrats in the majority in the Senate.

Both parties will be looking to take complete control of the US government, and expect rhetoric and discourse to heat up as we close in on Super Tuesday, 2024.

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)