Almost immediately after the midterm elections, the road to the 2024 US presidential election begins, and a number of candidates are already in the running.
Donald Trump, a former president, has declared his intention to run in the party's primary, promising to "make America great and glorious again.".
Although he continues to enjoy support from Republican voters, his midterm performance, which was underwhelming in part because Trump-backed candidates lost, has made him more vulnerable.
The former president, who will turn 78 in two years, is likely to face a tough challenge from a group of Republican contenders, some of whom have previously supported him.
In the middle of February, Nikki Haley declared her intention to run for president, making her the first significant Republican to make such a commitment.
Nikki Haley, once regarded as one of the most promising young candidates for the Republican Party, has maintained a lower profile lately.
Ms. Haley, who is of Punjabi Sikh descent and was born in South Carolina, was sworn in as the nation's youngest governor in 2009. She attracted widespread attention in 2015 when she demanded that the Confederate flag be taken down from the South Carolina Capitol.
Despite declaring in 2016 that she was "not a fan," she later agreed to accept his nomination as the US ambassador to the UN. Her tenure there was highlighted by her dramatic exit from a UN Security Council meeting as a Palestinian envoy was speaking.
At this early stage, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is seen as a strong candidate to unseat Mr. Trump because of his efforts to imitate him.
In the midterm elections, he easily won re-election with a margin of more than 1 point 5 million votes, the largest in the state in more than 40 years.
The 44-year-old lawyer with Yale and Harvard degrees is still a relative newcomer to US politics.
He had a stint in the US Navy that included time spent in Iraq. From 2013 to 2018, he served in the House of Representatives as a little-known representative.
However, Mr. DeSantis has seen his star significantly rise since he was elected governor of Florida in 2019, a position in which he positions himself as an ardent supporter of conservatism.
He disregarded the Covid pandemic's mask and vaccine requirements, signed anti-riot laws in response to racial justice demonstrations, and supported legislation that would have restricted LGBT education in primary schools. Republicans now outnumber Democrats in the state for the first time during his administration.
The fact that Mr. Trump recently referred to his rival as "Ron DeSanctimonious" and threatened to reveal damaging information about him if he ran for office in 2024 suggests that he is paying close attention.
Mike Pence served as Mr. Trump's vice president for four years, but their relationship soured after the Capitol riot in 2021.
Mr. Pence, a conservative politician who is the son of a Korean War veteran, started out as a talk radio host.
As a "principled conservative" who supported the Tea Party, he was elected to the House in 2000 and held office there until 2013.
In addition, he presided over Indiana as governor from 2013 to 2017. In that capacity, he signed legislation to protect religious freedom and limit abortion as well as the largest tax cut in state history.
A 63-year-old born-again evangelical Christian, Mr. Pence is credited with helping Mr. Trump win over evangelicals, a significant voting bloc, in 2016.
He was viewed as an effective stand-in for the bomb-throwing Donald because he was composed and soft-spoken. But after he declined to assist in overturning the 2020 election results, Mr. Trump attacked him for lacking "courage.".
In January 2021, pro-Trump rioters overran the US Capitol and could be heard yelling, "Hang Mike Pence!". They reportedly came within 40 feet (12 meters) of the vice president at one point.
Since then, the two have maintained their distance. In the 2021 midterm elections, Mr. Pence supported several Republican candidates, including Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, whose opponent Mr. Trump had backed.
Previously a rising star in the Republican Party, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney served as the party's third-highest ranking member in the House from 2019 to 2021.
She won her father's old congressional seat in 2017, went on to represent Wyoming in Congress, and voted in lockstep with the Trump administration. She is a fiscal and social conservative with interventionist foreign policy views.
However, she lost Republican support after she frequently criticized Mr. Trump and then voted to impeach him for his part in the Capitol riots on January 6.
She lost her leadership position, received a formal reprimand, and the Wyoming Republican Party no longer recognizes her.
The 56-year-old Ms. Cheney later joined the congressional committee looking into the Capitol riots as one of just two Republicans. She has taken the initiative to hold Mr. Trump and others accountable in her role as vice-chair.
Her position cost her her job in August when the former president endorsed a rival who defeated her by nearly 40% in the Wyoming primary.
But Ms. Cheney insists that she is still a Republican and that she will do whatever it takes "to help restore our party.".
Mike Pompeo, a Kansas congressman at the time, warned loudly that Mr. Trump would be "an authoritarian president who ignored our Constitution.".
He served in the House from 2011 to 2017. He was an Army veteran who graduated first in his class from the elite West Point military academy.
The Harvard-educated attorney later held the positions of secretary of state and director of the CIA in the Trump administration.
He participated in important US foreign policy initiatives, including helping to reverse decades-old US policy toward Israel and planning Mr. Trump's summits with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. But he also actively sought out controversy, which led to disagreements with reporters and at least two ethics inquiries.
When Glenn Youngkin was elected governor of Virginia in 2021, the Republican Party was ecstatic. He defeated a candidate who had been active in Democratic politics since the 1980s and was a political novice who worked for 25 years at the private equity firm Carlyle Group.
Mr. Youngkin criticized partisan politics as "too toxic" and ran for office in a state that has recently shifted toward Democrats.
But since taking office, the 55-year-old has engaged in contentious debates on issues like revoking the state's Covid-19 restrictions and outlawing the teaching of critical race theory in schools.
Throughout the nation, he backed Republicans in the midterm elections. He received criticism for downplaying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband's violent attack during a campaign stop, for which he later issued an apology.
Florida's Rick Scott, a 70-year-old lawmaker, was charged with assisting Republicans in taking back the Senate in the midterm elections.
He was unsuccessful in that endeavor, but in his crucial campaign role, he supported and raised money for candidates across the nation, winning over potential backers.
He served as governor of Florida for two terms and has recently come under fire from Democrats for calling for significant cuts to the size of the federal government.
Steve Scott. The 57-year-old South Carolina resident is the first black Republican senator since 1979 and the first politician of African descent to hold office in both houses of Congress.
Donald Cruz. The 52-year-old Texas senator ran a strong race in the Republican primary for president in 2016 before finishing second to Mr. Trump.
Lawrence Hogan. The moderate 66-year-old Republican, who overcame skin cancer, has been Maryland's governor since 2015; the state is friendly to Democrats.
Scott Abbott. Mr. Abbott, 65, the first wheelchair-using governor of Texas, has supported conservative policies ever since he was elected in 2014.
Stacy Noem. The 51-year-old first female governor of South Dakota attracted national attention for her opposition to Covid restrictions and her eagerness to participate in public discourse.
