Biden wins US election: Can Donald Trump run for president again in 2024?

Donald Trump is still refusing to concede to Joe Biden, who has now been officially declared the winner of the 2020 presidential elections after the Democratic candidate finally claimed Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral college votes following a lengthy count in the state that lasted some five days.

Soon after, Biden was also claimed the winner of Nevada’s six electoral college votes to bring his overall tally to 290, 20 more than the 270 required to claim victory. And he could still recieve more with a few states still left to declare winners.

Trump has continued to maintain that he is the rightful winner while making several allegations of voter fraud. The President has initiated legal challenges in several states, but many legal experts say these lawsuits are without merit and lack any credible evidence.

As such, a transition of power in January 2021 is expected, something which Trump may soon come to accept. When he does so, he will be able to put the 2020 election results behind him and begin to focus on whether he will run for president again in 2024.

Could Trump run again in 2024?

US presidents are allowed to serve a maximum of two terms. Since Trump will leave office after one term, becoming the ninth president to do so, he will technically be allowed to run again for a second term in 2024.

Several of his former advisors have already said that they expect him to run again in 2024, including former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who now serves as US special envoy for Northern Ireland.

“I would absolutely expect the president to stay involved in politics and would absolutely put him on the shortlist of people who are likely to run in 2024,” said Mulvaney on Friday at a webinar hosted by a Dublin think tank.

On Thursday, the former communications director of the Trump Transition team, Bryan Lanza, also said he believes the President will make another run in four years. 

“He has got the apparatus; he has got the support. If he were to lose a very tight election today, he can make the claim that it wasn't a fair and free election, the media interfered with their suppression polls, you've had the rules change, you've had ballots appear, and I think he can make a strong case to run again and I think the Republicans would step aside and let it happen,” Lanza told the BBC.

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Trump team “laying groundwork” for 2023 run

According to a report by CNN on Friday, Trump’s team is “laying the groundwork” for a run in 2024.

“The President and his closest allies have already begun to prepare the justification for why he 'has' to run again in 2024,” wrote CNN Editor-at-large, Chris Cillizza.

“The argument is two-fold: 1) The election is being taken from him and 2) Only Trump among prominent elected Republicans is willing to stand up and fight this tremendous injustice.”

Trump and his team are now concerned with the multiple legal challenges they have launched in several states on the back of their baseless claims of election fraud. But once the dust finally settles on the 2020 race and those suits are tossed out as expected, Team Trump may well turn their focus to setting up his campaign to “Make America Great Again” in 2024, at which point the real estate mogul will be 78 years old.