Who ran against Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections?

Former US President Donald Trump is in the race for the White House, vouching for his second term against his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris. Trump, who served as the 45th president of the US, is running in his third consecutive election campaign.

In 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, while he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

2016 presidential election

Former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump despite winning the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes. Trump won 304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227 after an abrasive campaign that defied political norms.

During his campaign, Trump blamed party establishments for costly interventions in foreign conflicts, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, stagnant real wages, excessive political correctness, and the failure to enforce immigration laws.

Meanwhile, Clinton's campaign featured superior organization and fundraising—and almost every election-eve poll pointed to a comfortable victory for her. However, Trump’s anti-Washington appeal to white working-class voters outside major cities in pivotal manufacturing states proved to be the key factor in what several publications called “the most stunning upset in American history.”

2020 presidential election

Sitting President Trump lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, which was held amid the global Covid pandemic.

Biden garnered more than 81 million votes to win the popular vote by more than seven million ballots and triumphed in the Electoral College by a count of 306 to 232.

Trump refused to acknowledge the election results, claiming without evidence that the election had been stolen from him through fraud, and mounted unsuccessful legal challenges in several states that he had lost.

Widespread acceptance of Trump’s prolonged baseless insistence that the election had been stolen ultimately led to the storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6.