[2] Season One also includes a reference to Palmer being a college basketball star, hitting a game-winning shot against DePaul in the Final Four.

Although he initially seeks a second term, he is blackmailed to bow out of the race after the opposing candidate learns that David has lied to the chief of police in order to protect his ex-wife, Sherry Palmer, who is under suspicion for involvement in the death of one of his key supporters.

On several occasions, his intervention as president and the execution of his presidential powers helps the Counter Terrorist Unit.

In the first season, Palmer is the frontrunner in the race for nomination as Democratic candidate for President of the United States.

Palmer investigates, but finds that telling the truth is preferable to covering it up with lies, and takes a stand in favor of his son.

Palmer, believing that Bauer wants payback for the deaths of his covert operations team, starts by demanding that Jack tell him of the other people involved in the assassination attempt on his life.

The failed covert mission is implied to be the cause of Bauer's marital problems preceding the season, Palmer goes on to defeat his Democratic primary opponent Governor Hodges, a University of Toledo College of Law alumnus, and incumbent president Harold Barnes in the general election.

Palmer then reverses course, stating that he believes the recordings to be fake, as advised by Jack, but Mike Novick, his Chief of Staff, and the vice president, Jim Prescott deem this sudden reluctance to attack as an incapability to hold the office.

Prescott gathers the Cabinet members, and by one vote, David Palmer is removed from office under the provisions of the 25th Amendment.

He sits in a room as a prisoner for the rest of the day, until Jack provides CTU with the evidence that the Cyprus Recording is a forgery, and the attacks are called off by Prescott.

A few months later (in the comic, 24: Midnight Sun), after the events of Day 2 and 24: The Game, President Palmer allows the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge near Fairbanks, Alaska.

Palmer chooses death, but eventually is informed of a huge terrorist threat where Jack had to go undercover.

Palmer effectively leads the events in the latter part of Day 4, but realizes that Logan is a weak-willed commander in chief unable to demonstrate Presidential leadership.

[4] In the opening moments of Day 5, David Palmer is discussing his memoir with his brother Wayne in his penthouse apartment.

It is later revealed that the assassin, a man named Haas, had received his orders from Christopher Henderson, who is secretly working for President Charles Logan and Graem Bauer.

David Palmer is found to be the primary target for discovering information about someone within the Logan administration who was working with the terrorists.

At the close of the day, David Palmer is given a state procession, as his body was flown back to Washington, watched on by the President and First Lady.

[8] On an episode of The Daily Show that aired on June 4, 2008, host Jon Stewart remarked (in a clear reference to David Palmer) that newly christened presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama will be the first African American candidate for President of the United States "since the first season of 24."