It’s the job nobody seems to want: with Barack Obama’s ratings higher than they have been in months, the GOP is having trouble finding candidates to take him on in next year’s election. But the race to secure the Republican presidential nomination is finally heating up—and so is the numbers game to predict the eventual nominee. The Nation has taken the pulse of polls and evaluations, scientific and otherwise, to provide a rundown of where the candidates stand.
We used the following criteria to come up with our list: National Journal’s Presidential Power Rankings; this year’s CPAC straw poll; a recent Zogby poll of Republican primary voters, asking who they would cast their ballot for if a primary were held today; and finally, how the sports betting site Bodog breaks down each candidate’s odds.
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Declared: Yes
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: 1
Zogby poll: 9% of Republican primary voters’ support
CPAC straw poll ranking: 2nd
Bodog odds: 5/2
“Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo.” May 2007
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Declared: Yes
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: 5
Zogby poll: 7% of Republican primary voters’ support
CPAC straw poll ranking: 5th
Bodog odds: 14/1
“I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.” March 2011
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Declared: Yes
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: 2
Zogby poll: 4% of Republican primary voters’ support
CPAC straw poll ranking: 6th
Bodog odds: 9/2
"I’ve said I was wrong [about supporting cap and trade legislation]. It was a mistake, and I’m sorry." May 2011
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Declared: No
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: 6
Zogby poll: 2% of Republican primary voters’ support
CPAC straw poll ranking: 7th
Bodog odds: 14/1
“Normalization [of homosexuality] through desensitization. Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders is take a picture of ‘The Lion King’ for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know that the music for this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: ‘I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.’” November 2004
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Declared: Yes
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: 10
Zogby poll: 10% of Republican primary voters’ support
CPAC straw poll ranking: 1st
Bodog odds: 20/1
“I don’t have a right to come to you and say my poor kid in Texas needs an education… an education is not a right, medical care is not a right, these are things that you have to earn.” March 2011
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Declared: No
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: 7
Zogby poll: N/A
CPAC straw poll ranking: 13th
Bodog odds: 12/1
"I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them." May 2011
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Declared: Yes
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: 8
Zogby poll: 2% of Republican primary voters’ support
CPAC straw poll ranking: 11th
Bodog odds: 40/1
"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said. "It’s being drawn to Iraq and it’s not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don’t want the Eye to come back here to the United States." October 2006
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Declared: No
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: 9
Zogby poll: 4% of Republican primary voters’ support
CPAC straw poll ranking: 9th
Bodog odds: 12/1
"Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant—they’re quite clear—that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the Ten Commandments." May 2010
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Declared: No
National Journal‘s Presidential Power Rankings: N/A
Zogby poll: 14% of Republican primary voters’ support
CPAC straw poll ranking: 9th
Bodog odds: 15/1
“It’s time to tell the people the truth, lower taxes are good for the economy, and we don’t have any intention of hurting old people, children or puppy dogs.” May 2011
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Then there’s the rest of the pack. Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory-heavy campaign came to an end this week, just as NBC rolled out its fall lineup. Arkansas’s Mike Huckabee also bowed out this week, and Mississippi’s Haley Barbour has been out since last month.
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Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was a major contender for the party’s nomination, so when he announced on Sunday, May 22 that he would not be running in 2012, he threw the door wide open for other late-coming candidates.
"Our morbidly obese federal government needs not just behavior modification but bariatric surgery." February, 2011
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Former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer has an exploratory committee, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is officially seeking the GOP nomination and Fred Karger has started his long-shot race as the first openly-gay presidential candidate from either major political party. Even the US’s former representative at the UN, John Bolton, is considering a run, though Politico reports that he has so far done “next-to-nothing to build a national political infrastructure.”
Credit: Roemer, AP Images; Johnson, AP Images, Karger, Fredkarger.com; Bolton, AP Images
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has already said he won’t run, but that hasn’t stopped speculation to the contrary. Texas Governor Rick Perry says he’s not interested either, but the GOP is getting desperate for an electable candidate.
Research for this slide show provided by Kevin Gosztola and Sara Jerving
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