While the election for the highest office in the land will undoubtedly take center stage, Americans have many other big decisions to make. Your vote for your county council member, mayor, state elected officials, governor, U.S. senator and member of the U.S. House of Representatives will help to determine what course your city or town, state and country will take over the next few years.

All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for grabs this fall. As of mid-February, Republicans narrowly control the chamber, 219-213, with three vacant seats. The U.S. Senate majority is even closer. Democrats control the Senate 51-49, with three of those 51 seats held by senators who are independents but caucus with the Democrats. The upper chamber will have 34 of its 100 seats up for election this fall. Of those, 23 are currently held by Democrats or independents, and 11 are held by Republicans.

At the state level, 11 governorships will be up for vote in November, as well as a wide range of local offices and ballot initiatives.

Political science experts and pollsters AARP interviewed agree that the country could be looking at a presidential election the likes of which we haven’t seen in more than a century: one in which both major-party candidates have already served a term in the office.

Democratic President Joe Biden is seeking his second consecutive term, and former Republican President Donald Trump (2017–21) wants to return to the White House for a second four years.

To find another rematch of people who are or have been president, “you’d have to go back to the Grover Cleveland elections,” says Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a newsletter published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. In 1888, then-President Cleveland was defeated for reelection by Benjamin Harrison. Four years later, Cleveland ran against Harrison again and won. Cleveland became—and still is—the only president in American history to be elected to a nonconsecutive second term.

A similar matchup happened in 1912, when Woodrow Wilson won a three-way race against President William Taft and Taft’s predecessor, former President Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as a third-party candidate and received 27 percent of the popular vote.

“Basically, no one alive now was alive when those things happened,” Kondik says. “So in modern times, this would be groundbreaking.”

As of mid-February, Biden is seen as a lock to be renominated, and Trump led his remaining GOP challenger in all national and state polls and had won the first few Republican contests.

“One of the things that will make this election very different is that with Trump and Biden, Americans wouldn’t have to imagine what it would be like having them as president,” says Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican political analyst and pollster. “Voters will already have a pretty clear picture of what they’d be getting when they go to the polls.”

Democratic pollster John Anzalone agrees, adding that with the country continuing to be so politically divided, this race “basically starts out at dead even.” Democratic strategist Celinda Lake predicts “a record amount of spending. There also is going to be record amounts of negative advertising.”

With Americans so familiar with the two likely presidential candidates, experts say that unlike in more recent contests, issues will matter. And there’s another unusual twist: Contrary to the wisdom coined by former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, in this year’s contests, all politics may not be local. 

Veteran GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio says he doesn’t know if issues will play a bigger role in this election than previous ones, but he believes they will be important. “The personalities are already baked into the election,” Fabrizio says. “These are well-defined figures. There are stark differences in their beliefs on economic policy, foreign policy, the border, energy independence. Where voters are on those issues will make a difference.”

A recent poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 4 in 10 adults see foreign policy issues as important for the government to pay attention to in 2024. That’s more than twice as many people as in a similar poll a year ago.

“Foreign policy normally isn’t that big of an issue to voters, and it may not be top of mind, but it is certainly a secondary issue with the war going on in Ukraine and the Israel–Hamas war,” Anzalone says. Whether foreign policy continues to resonate with voters, he says, will depend on the status of those conflicts when voters go to the polls.

Experts agree domestic issues, especially the economy, will still be top of mind for voters. An AP-NORC poll conducted from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 found that 76 percent of U.S. adults want the government to focus on economic issues. That’s essentially unchanged from 2022. The survey also found that 35 percent of voting-age adults want the government to focus on immigration.

A question that perennially vexes political experts and campaign strategists is how many voters will turn out.

“I think we’ll probably see record turnout again,” Fabrizio says. “One thing is absolutely true: that when Donald Trump is on the ballot, he drives out his supporters and he drives out his opponents.” But Kondik from the University of Virginia says turnout could well be lower than in 2020 because some voters who were more motivated to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic may not go to the polls this year.

Americans have flocked to the polls of late. In the 2020 presidential election, turnout was nearly 67 percent of eligible voters, the most in the 21st century, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In that election, the highest turnout was among voters ages 65 to 74, at 76 percent, while the lowest participation rate was among those ages 18 to 24, at just over 51 percent.

Experts agree that once again in this election, older voters will make the difference.

“History dictates and continues to show that older voters are the most consistent when it comes to turning out,” says John Hishta, AARP senior vice president of campaigns. “They will continue to play an outsize role, and it would behoove candidates to really pay attention to what older voters care about.”

In 2024, AARP is asking voters and candidates to focus on two key issues for the 50-plus population: Social Security and providing greater support to caregivers.

“Social Security is the number one economic issue, along with rising costs and whether Social Security keeps up with rising costs,” says Lake, the Democratic strategist. But, she adds, “caregiving is an issue that is massively undertapped, and I think it’s a real umbrella for the economy, particularly for women 40 to 65.”

AARP “is going to encourage candidates to really talk about caregiving and Social Security,” Hishta says. The organization produced two video voter guides where top GOP contenders for the nomination outlined what they would do to protect Social Security and support the 48 million family caregivers in this country. The organization also created a 30-minute program on Social Security that was released in the early primary states.

Lake says the election could well turn on whom older voters support, especially older women.

“Older men tend to be more decided, polarized and partisan,” Lake says. “Older women tend to be more undecided. They’re insecure about what is going on in the world. They’re looking for who has the right kind of leadership internationally, but the right kind of strength and temperament as well.”

In addition to focusing on the issues most important for older Americans, Hishta says, AARP will continue to play its long-standing role of helping people 50-plus know how, where and when they can vote. AARP state offices nationwide will focus on voter education, and voter guides for 53 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia will be available online and in the Bulletin.