In about a year, the people of the United States are going to be hitting the voting booths in an attempt to pick the best possible candidate for the United States President. Candidates are already lining up; newspapers are starting to compile research and people are picking sides.

This is the first time that I’ve ever been able to vote and I want to make sure I’m going into the next election with a solid preference and an educated reason why I support that candidate. I figured they best way to start who to see who was already running.

After a quick google search, I found a list of potential candidates compiled by the New York Times. Each person had a couple of key running points, a few of their issues and a quote pertaining to why they want to be president.

So far, there are 25 candidates running, 23 of which are Democrat, and only 2 are Republican.

Democrat:
Bennet	Biden	Booker
Bullock	Buttigieg	Castro
De Blasio	Demaney	Gabbard
Gillibrand	Harris	Hickenlooper
Inslee	Klobuchar	Messam
Moulton	O’Rourke	Ryan
Sanders	Swalwell	Warren
Williamson	Yang

Republican
Trump	Weld

Let’s a take a look at each one.

As I read each individuals quote, I immediately ruled out people who seemed to want to be president just to get Trump out of office, people who seem to push a certain agenda, or who seem like they might divide our country rather than bring it together.

Democrat:
Bennet	Biden	Booker
Bullock	Buttigieg	Castro
De Blasio	Demaney	Gabbard
Gillibrand	Harris	Hickenlooper
Inslee	Klobuchar	Messam
Moulton	O’Rourke	Ryan
Sanders	Swalwell	Warren
Williamson	Yang

Republican
Trump	Weld

The next thing I did was look for people who seemed qualified. It’s appropriate for the person who would be running our country to have a background in politics or to have started and built a business from the ground up. I ruled out anyone who doesn’t meet these guidelines. There were only two people who didn’t fit for this category, but I also ruled out Messam because his quote was very off-putting (he wanted to be our “Champion”).

Democrat:
Bennet	Biden	Booker
Bullock	Buttigieg	Castro
De Blasio	Demaney	Gabbard
Gillibrand	Harris	Hickenlooper
Inslee	Klobuchar	Messam
Moulton	O’Rourke	Ryan
Sanders	Swalwell	Warren
Williamson	Yang

Republican
Trump	Weld

After all of this, there are twelve Democrats left, and two Republicans.

Democrat:

Cory Booker, Senator from New Jersey; former mayor of Newark

Michael Bennet,
Senator from Colorado

Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Ind.; military veteran

Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City

John Delaney, Former congressman from Maryland; former businessman

Tulsi Gabbard, Congresswoman from Hawaii; Army National Guard veteran

Kamala Harris, Senator from California; former attorney general of California; former San Francisco district attorney

John Hickenlooper, Former governor of Colorado; former mayor of Denver

Beto O’Rourke, Former congressman from Texas; 2018 Senate candidate

Tim Ryan, Congressman from Ohio; former congressional staffer

Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont; former congressman

Eric Swalwell, Congressman from California

Republican:

Donald J. Trump,U.S. president; real estate developer; reality television star

William F. Weld, Former governor of Massachusetts; former federal prosecutor

Overall, I have to say that so far, I’m shocked with just how many Democrats are running, and I’m very curious to why there’s such a giant imbalance of candidates between Democrats and Republicans.