Predict the order of GOP candidates dropping out.

Politics & Elections
1

Here’s the list of who’s running as best as I can find. Of them please make your predictions who drops when.

BUSH

CARSON

CHRISTIE

CRUZ

FIORINA

GRAHAM

HUCKABEE

JINDAL

PATAKI

PAUL

PERRY

RUBIO

SANTORUM

TRUMP

WALKER

KASICH (Assuming he announces as most predict.)
Anyone drop before Iowa even starts it off?

Then there is NH, South Carolina, and Nevada filling up February.

Probably no drop offs until Super Tuesday March 15th, but some may not have funds to compete in all the states by then. Certainly after that point I see many of the lesser lights dropping off (possibly throwing support to one or another front runner or just not actively running but holding onto any delegates they may have won.) Paul certainly will drop out as his funds seem pretty sparse.

Who will still be in after Super Tuesday?

Florida will then show the door to either Bush or Rubio.

Will it reach the convention not yet completely decided? Will deals be made by those left battling it out to earn the endorsements (and delegates) of those who are no longer actively running?

Lay down your predictions one and all!

2

I’m not sure. We may be in a new age. Why drop out? Why not stay in and minimize your expenses and try some Gorilla marketing?

I think there are over 200 people running for President officially. . .

http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/there-are-nearly-200-americans-already-running-for-president-we-talked-to-a-few-of-them-20150323

I wonder how many of those are going to “drop-out?”

But, that said, I think Pataki, Graham, Jindal, Trump, Carson, might all find the going too rough over the LONG term. Santorum won’t get much traction but will stick it out. I think the same for Fiorina, Paul and Perry.

3

These will drop out early: Fiorina, Jindal, Huckabee, Pataki, Graham, Carson, Santorum, Trump

These will drop out in the middle: Cruz, Kasich, Christie

These will be the last three standing: Bush, Rubio, Walker

Rand Paul will be like his dad, staying in the race long after it’s clear that he can’t win.

Rick Perry will last through three primaries: Iowa, New Hampshire, and … what was the other one?

4

I don’t see Graham, Pataki, Christie or Kasich making it to the Iowa caucuses.

Jindal, Fiorina and Perry are unlikely to make it much longer.

Carson, Huck, Santorum and Walker I put somewhere in the middle.

Trump and Cruz are both such egotistical, attention-seeking, head cases I can’t really predict when they will get bored, or decide it isn’t serving their narcissism, and quit.

My guess is that Bush, Rubio and just cause he’s soooooo tenacious, Randy Paul make it pretty far.

5

Tough to predict, given that some marginal candidates know they won’t win, so not winning caucuses and primaries isn’t going to change anything for them. Call it the Kucinich Incentive.

But poor showings in early primaries will knock out serious candidates. As the OP pointed out, Florida ends either Rubio or Bush, unless it’s really, really close, or either of them won earlier primaries. If Bush was to win NH and SC, yet fall short in Florida, he’s not dropping out. Ditto for Rubio. But in most scenarios, yes, one of them is gone after Florida. I’m going to call Bush out after Florida.

Walker seems more and more likely to flame out now. He’s counting on Iowa. He’ll finish third in Iowa and drop out then.

Christie, as the main moderate candidate, needs to win New Hampshire. Like Huntsman, he will fail to do so and drop out then.

Graham’s staying until SC, if only because he can claim a lead in delegates at that point if he wins his home state and see how far that gets him in Florida. I predict Graham will finish sixth in IA, 3rd in NH, and 2nd in SC. Then he’ll go to Florida, get creamed, and realize he’s done. But Graham is my pick for candidate most likely to exceed expectations. Sixth in IA would be big for him(McCain finished 5th in 2008), and 3rd in NH would be positively earth-shattering(but not impossible, as moderates tend to do well there due to the open primary).

Perry will disappoint in Iowa, badly, maybe finishing like 10th. If his debate performances are as bad as last time, he’ll drop out before Iowa.

That’s about all I’m reasonably sure of, since the other candidates have varying odds of success IMO and/or unpredictable motivations. I have no idea how far Trump and Carson are willing to take this if they don’t do well in the early primaries. I have no idea if Kasich or Huckabee will do well enough to carry on. Huck could win Iowa again and that might propel him to win SC as well, which was his plan in 2008.

If I had to predict a final two though? Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. They are new faces, one is the clear favorite of a growing part of the party and the other is everyone’s second choice and broadly acceptable to the bulk of the party. They are doing the best in trial heat polls against Clinton, so electability will be a major part of their argument, and with only the Presidency left for Republicans to win they won’t want to screw it up this time. Other candidates will remain, but only Rubio and Paul will still have a shot after Super Tuesday, with Rubio the clear frontrunner due to Paul’s narrower appeal within the party.

So those are the adaher predictions, write 'em down.

6

Trump will be first of all, dropping off shortly after the first debate, citing that he’s being persecuted by being expected to release financial data.

The field will start to narrow even before Iowa as these fairly rational candidates are the first to face reality:

Lindway Graham will leave first.
George Pataki will see the writing on the wall
Following Iowa, we’ll see some serious carnage. The next few will come so quickly that the exact order will be a matter of chance

Mike Kacich will be the first of this lot to read the writing on the wall, followed quickly by
Ben Carson
Carly Fiorina
Bobby Jindal

On to New Hampshire, where the bloodletting continues

Chris Christie finally packs it in and signs a deal as the next host of Man vs. Food
Rick Perry suspends his campaign, quits, and I forget the third thing
Rick Santorum quits and endorses Bush

Next we hit South Carolina

Marco Rubio packs it in, followed quickly by
Mike Huckabee and
Scott Walker

Then it’s on to Florida, where
Ted Cruz decides he’s had enough,
leaving Paul and Bush

Paul sticks around till Super Tuesday, leaving the nomination to:

Jeb! Bush
Jeb! picks Scott Walker as his running mate, loses badly to Hillary, and Walker becomes the default choice for 2020.

7

Fiorina will probably be the first. She has little support and no money and can’t even point to being a current or former member of an elected body to fall back on.

Next comes the ones with no support and little money, like Graham, Kasich, and Pataki.

Carson’s just like the above, but crazy, so he’ll probably stick it in a little longer. Plus, his agenda’s different. Even he doesn’t think he has a shot at winning, he’s there to sell books and get a gig on Fox news, so he’ll stick around a little longer until he gets embarassed, which is probably around Iowa.

Then we have a few former/current governors who think they have a shot owing to their past record of winning, but will face reality as soon as the actual votes start coming in. Jindal will go, then Perry and Huckabee, then Christie after he sees how badly he’s doing.

By the time of the first votes, guys like Santorum, who stuck around, will be looking at the crowded field knowing they can’t win but trying to be kingmakers. He got like #2 last time, but with more choices in the primaries, I don’t think he’ll make it that far. He’s also in it to raise his profile and pretend to be relevant, but 2012 was his peak and he’s not reaching that again. He’ll drop out and throw his support behind the most virulent fundie still left.

That leaves mostly the serious guys, the ones who are currently high-profile and flush with money and/or elected officials. Of the rest, its hard to tell who will crazy themselves too much and flame out first, but I’m guessing a combination of Paul, Cruz, and Rubio will stick around for more than a handful of primaries until they are mathematically eliminated. I never bought Rubio’s threat to win, he’s too moderate, too foreign, and made mistakes on immigration to ever capture the primary, but he’s a better candidate than Santorum. Maybe in 2020.

I’m sure that Bush will make it to the final 3, but I’m just not sure if he’s going to be battling against Trump and Walker or one of the other guys above. I don’t really see Walker as anything more than a regional lacky. Sure, he’s got Koch money and his anti-union stance is beloved by conservatives, but he’s also got the least name recognition of probably the top 6 (with Cruz/Paul/Rubio rounding that out). Money helps, but not if, by this time, your opponents get to define who you are.

Trump I just can’t figure out. He might be seriously crazy and believe his own lies, in which case he’ll stay in as long as possible, making racist remarks and getting the base all fired up, or he can do it for a few months, not even make it to Iowa, and decide that he’ll drop out and focus on his business. He’s either all in or trolling everyone, including the RNC, I just don’t know

8

Fiorina may get propped up by the party for a while, to keep the rainbow on stage at the debates (See? We got a woman! A black guy! Even an Indian guy!), but not for long.

I’ll say Kasich is out first because he isn’t even in yet, and there is no groundswell under him. The other too-adult-to-win guys, Graham and Pataki, run out of money sometime during the process.

Whole buncha Crazies Of The Month next, could be any order, doesn’t matter.

The finalists after that are ¡Jeb!, Rubio, and Walker, with ¡Jeb! taking it if he ever learns not to trip over his own dick, and maybe even if he doesn’t.

9

I wonder if only letting ten candidates into the main debate will knock out some candidates who otherwise might stick it out longer. For relatively well established politicians (Graham, Jindal, maybe Perry or Cruz), not even being able to get in the door while Trump and Carson get the spotlight would be kind of humiliating. And probably somewhat damaging to their brands. I predict at least some of them will bail just to avoid future embarrassment. Since at least a few of them are running not so much to win as just to keep themselves in the spotlight to help their post-2016 careers (Jindal) or push their particular viewpoint (I think Graham just wants to make sure there’s a hawk at the debates), getting shut out like that might make them decide to pack it in early.

I think he’ll drop out if its clear he won’t win specifically because he doesn’t want to be seen like his dad. I think he actually wants to be Prez someday, and he’s young enough to have another go at it later, so I suspect he’ll want to make it clear that he isn’t just running to be a symbolic libertarian in future races.

10

Carly Fiorina Reports Net Worth of $59 Million.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-04/carly-fiorina-reports-net-worth-of-59-million

So how can you say no money?

11

Net worth and campaign warchest are totally different things. I’m sure all of these people or most are worth at least in the tens of millions. A full presidential run will cost upwards of a billion dollars, only Trump can entirely fund his own campaign and I’m still not convinced he’ll stay in (or has a billion in cash laying around).

12

They’re not totally different things. Candidates can and do donate unlimited funds to their own campaigns.

In any case, she doesn’t have to fund a full Presidential Campaign. We’re just talking about the primary. In the extremely unlikely event that she wins her party nomination, she’ll have more donators than she knows what to do with.

Even if she wins a couple of early primaries, she’ll get plenty of money. McCain’s campaign went broke early in the 2008 primary, and he still won the nomination. Basically, if you can afford to buy ads in Iowa and NH and enough staff to fill out the paperwork to get you on the ballot in other states, you have enough money to be a serious Presidential candidate.

13

Barely worth mentioning, but former VA Gov. James Gilmore is running. (I expect him to have somewhat less impact on the race than Pataki.)

I’m not sure I can do better here than throwing darts at a dartboard would. With so many of the minor candidates, how long they stay depends on how long hope can triumph over experience.

I’d have an easier time guessing in what order they’ll dive under under 2%, say, for the last time in polls/balloting, than guessing in what order they’ll actually give up.

14

Well, it depends how much of that she’s willing to spend/waste on campaigning. It’s not a huge fortune considering the expense of campaigns.

15

I would say Jindal will be the first person to drop out.
I am not so sure on Trump, I think he is testing the waters. If he sees more support, he will seriously run. I don’t think the Donald will drop out before the debates, in fact I think he can win some primaries. Call me crazy, but I think he is the most underestimated one, people still think he is doing it for only publicity. I think Trump will even surprise himself.

Jeb Bush will for sure be in the top 3, good chance of getting the nomination. I’m on the fence with George Pataki, hopefully after the debates he will resonate with people and perhaps win some primaries. I don’t see Scott Walker going into the top three.

16

And it’s not like she’ll ever get another CEO gig. :eek:

17

Fiorina’s getting a lot of positive attention from the conservative media and blogosphere, but the quality of her talking does not indicate the quality of her governing. Her record as CEO predicts how that will go a lot better than her admittedly solid speaking chops.