Richard Montgomery Rakoto (born June 26, 1981) is an American politician who has been serving as the 46th President of the United States since 2025. A member of the Republican Party, Rakoto previously served as a member of the House of Representatives from New Jersey’s 2nd congressional district from 2019 to 2023. He is the second African-American to serve as US president after Barack Obama. Rakoto is also the first US president of Malagasy descent.
Early Life (1981-2019)
Richard Montgomery Rakoto was born on June 26, 1981, in Warwick, Rhode Island. He was the only child of Charles and Josephine Rakoto. Both of his parents were immigrants from the island country of Madagascar, which is located in the Indian Ocean near the southeastern shore of Africa. They named their son Richard in honor of former US president Richard Nixon.
Rakoto was raised Catholic in Cranston, Rhode Island. He attended a Catholic parochial school for his early education before switching to public school in sixth grade. After he graduated from Cranston High School in 1999, Rakoto attended Clemson University in South Carolina where he received his bachelors degree in history.
After college, Rakoto moved to Pennsylvania and worked as a history teacher in a middle school. He remained a history teacher until 2017, when he moved to Pennsville Township in Southern New Jersey.
U.S. Representative (2019-2023)
In 2018, Richard Rakoto was elected to the US House of Representatives as a Republican, representing New Jersey’s 2nd congressional district. He was sworn in on January 3, 2019. He would be re-elected to a second term in 2020. For most of his tenure, Rakoto did not due any significant things while in Congress.
In 2022, Rakoto did not seek a third term in Congress. The reason why was so that he could run for the Republican nomination for president in the 2024 presidential election. Rakoto was succeeded by fellow Republican Jeff Van Drew.
2024 Presidential Campaign
Rakoto officially launched his presidential campaign on May 29, 2023. Initially considered a longshot campaign, Rakoto quickly became the front-runner for Republican nomination. On June 10, 2024, Rakoto selected Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami to be his running mate. Both Rakoto and Suarez were nominated at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In the general election, Rakoto faced the Democrat ticket of Washington governor Jay Inslee and Georgia senator Raphael Warnock. Despite polls showing that the Democrats would win the presidency, Rakoto was elected president with 532 electoral votes, winning all states except for North Dakota and the District of Columbia.
Presidency (2025-Present)
Rakoto was inaugurated as the 46th US president on January 20, 2025, succeeding Donald Trump. During the first 100 days of his presidency, Rakoto’s administration did various reforms. One example was when Rakoto signed an executive order that renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This nearly caused a war with Mexico, but a war was prevented when McGrathia threatened to intervene.
In January 2026, the US military, under orders from Rakoto, intervened in Venezuela, successfully deposing Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, who was subsequently taken back to the United States to face a narcoterrorism trial in New York. Rakoto also plans to do the same thing in Nicaragua in order to deposed Daniel Ortega.
In May 2026, Rakoto survived an assassination attempt during a speech in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was believed that a Chinese spy attempted to kill him in order to weaken the United States. In response, Rakoto declared economic sanctions onto the People’s Republic of China in June 2026 to prevent any American companies from operating in one of America’s foreign enemies.