Welcome to the latest installment of The Duckpin Republican Presidential Power Rankings. These rankings will list, in my estimation, the contenders for the Republican nomination for President on a 1……17(!) scale. This list will be updated every month; maybe more once we get to later in the year.
The rankings are a combination of polls, data, political environment, and gut feelings. It is not necessarily a ranking in order of who I think should be the Republican nominee, but who is best positioned to win the nomination at that time. Think of it as a snapshot in time. Especially considering at least two candidates are still pussyfooting around with the idea of running.
#17: Ryan Binkley (TX): (Previous: 16)
Binkley is a tech executive and pastor out of Texas who seems to be running a vaguely legitimate campaign for President. His campaign is making six-figure ad buys in Iowa and his message should play well to Evangelical voters who are very likely to participate in the Iowa Caucuses. Given that he is going all in on Iowa, he better overperform there.
#16: Perry Johnson (MI): (Previous: NR)
Johnson is a businessman who attempted to run for Governor of Michigan but was disqualified from the ballot for submitting fraudulent signatures needed for ballot access. He’s employing a unique strategy in order to get on the stage for the August 23rd Republican debate; selling t-shirts for $1 and counting them as one of the 40,000 unique small donations necessary to qualify. Will it work? Probably not, but it’s at least a unique way to try and push past the arcane debate qualification rules that help establishment candidates like Trump and DeSantis.
#15: Ex-Secretary of State Corey Stapleton (MT): (Previous: 15)
Fun fact: Corey Stapleton has lost four out of five statewide elections he has run in Montana. But decided in November to run for President anyway. He also has been releasing country music, too. Live your best life, man.
#14: Ex-Mayor Steve Laffey (CO): (Previous: 14)
Steve Laffey was Mayor of Cranson, Rhode Island from 2003-2007 before losing the U.S. Senate Primary to Lincoln Chaffee in 2006. He has run for office a few times in Colorado since moving there a while ago. But he too threw his hat in to run for President.
#13: Larry Elder (CA): (Previous: 13)
Elder for America was a sponsor at CPAC Texas, so the announcement that Elder was running for President surprised nobody. Why else would a talk show host and failed gubernatorial candidate be spending that kind of scratch? Is this going to be a Dale Peterson-type campaign? Or something legitimate?
#12: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez (FL): (Previous: NR)
He’s back, which gives us two Florida Republicans under investigation now running for President. Of course, Suarez voted for Democrat Andrew Gillum instead of Ron DeSantis in the 2018 election for a very pathetic reason.
#11: Governor Doug Burgum (ND): (Previous: 12)
Last month I poo-pooed Burgum’s impending announcement. But he looks like he is going to run a serious campaign and is heavily investing his own wealth into primary ads in the early states. Will it translate? Who knows.
#10: Governor Glenn Youngkin (VA) (Previous: 10)
Youngkin is this year’s Mario Cuomo, pulling the Hamlet act until people stop caring anymore…
#9. Former Congressman Will Hurd (TX) (Previous: 9)
Hurd was only a three-term Congressman, but he also is a veteran CIA operative and a critic of Trumpism within the party. As foreign policy and national security become more important issues heading toward 2024, Hurd is well-positioned to take advantage of both his national security bona fides as well as his anti-Trump stance. Hurd also made no commitments to support the GOP nominee in 2024, so that will keep him off the stage of any RNC-controlled debates. He better have a plan to overcome that or else this is just an exercise to sell books.
#8: Vivek Ramaswamy (OH): (Previous: 8)
I’ll be honest, I had absolutely no idea who the hell this guy was until he started talking about a run and ultimately announced. I still don’t know very much except he is a billionaire, is against “wokeism” and the ESG framework. It’s the part where he is a billionaire where, in the modern social media driven political market, can take him from being a nobody into being a contender. Though billionaires from Morry Taylor to Michael Bloomberg have run for President with no success. Ramaswamy seems like a guy who wants to drive the conversation more so than somebody with delusions of actually winning. But I’m not sure “I am in this race to take the America First agenda further than Donald Trump ever did” as a message is going to go very far. Nor is raising the voting age to 25. But I’m sure that Republican voters will love the fact that he worked for George Soros…
#7: Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (AK) (Previous: 7)
He’s running for President, which is still a bit of a surprise to me. Some think Hutchinson is the ideal Republican candidate. I question that after seeing what the modern Republican Party has become. But Republicans have done worse, and almost certainly will in 2024.
#6: Former Governor Nikki Haley (SC): (Previous: 6)
Inflating your campaign finance number is not something anything resembling a strong campaign does. Haley does not seem like she’s going to make it terribly far.
#5: Former Gov. Chris Christie (NJ) (Previous: 5)
He’s attacking Ron DeSantis. He’s attacking Donald Trump. He went to Texas to meet with donors. He’s running. But considering that Christie 1. Missed his chance in 2012 and 2. got shellacked in his 2016 campaign, will anybody care? He’s was recently in New Hampshire starting to rehab his name. He’s attacking Trump, at least. He can govern. But can he win? Unlikely.
#4: Former Vice President Mike Pence (IN) (Previous: 3)
The longer goes on without Pence making a splash, the harder it is going to be to gain any traction to stay in the top tier. I mean, he’s a former Vice-President and is a household name in the GOP. You can’t say he’s left for dead already, but it’s getting late early out there.
#3: Gov. Ron DeSantis (FL) (Previous: 2)
Remember when I said that Ron DeSantis looked unbeatable? Not anymore.
#2: Sen. Tim Scott (SC) (Previous: 4)
How exactly does Scott catapult DeSantis here? Because Scott has a ton of institutional support. The endorsement of Senator John Thune means something. The tacit support of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell means something, even if it is only to certain voters and certain donors. And the fact that Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison is ready to spend tens of millions on Scott’s behalf in SuperPAC spending means that the greater Scott infrastructure will have plenty of money to keep him afloat.
#1: Ex-President Donald Trump (FL) (Previous: 1)
He’s running. GOP voters want to commit political suicide and hand the election back to Biden. And now, I’m not sure there is anything that can stop them. Hell, his poll numbers went UP after his arraignment, for example. The Party is beyond lost. Some people think his nomination is inevitable and some people think he can be stopped. But one Republican quoted in Politico said it all:
As a shrewd Republican strategist, and no NeverTrumper, put it to me recently: “We’re just going to have to go into the basement, ride out the tornado and come back up when it’s over to rebuild the neighborhood.”
With all that being said, to his credit, Trump appears to be running a competent and credible campaign organization compared to whatever the hell he did in 2016 and 2020.
Dropped Out: Chris Sununu (#11, declined to run for President)