Miami Mayor Francis Suarez wasn’t exactly subtle about his national ambitions. The Republican repeatedly dropped hints about his presidential plans, and this week, an allied super PAC released a video promoting the Floridian.
A day later, Suarez made it official. NBC News reported, yet another Florida man “has filed paperwork to enter the 2024 presidential race.”
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who bills himself as a “unifier,” is poised to launch a long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination. … Suarez, a real estate attorney and the son of former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez, was initially elected in 2017. He was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2021 and serves as the president of the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors.
By all appearances, Suarez’s odds of success aren’t great. The mayor is getting a late start; he is not well known outside of his home town; his tenure has not exactly been controversy-free; and he serves in an office with limited powers, making it tough for Suarez to claim credit for things that have happened in his city since his election.
With all of this in mind, it’s tough to imagine the mayor seriously competing for the GOP nomination. His entry into the race does, however, leave us with a couple of related questions: How many Republicans are we up to in the 2024 race? And why is the field so big?
On the former, Suarez is, by some counts, the 11th contender for the party’s nomination, joining Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Doug Burgum, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Larry Elder. (Perry Johnson, a wealthy Michigan businessman who ran for governor last year, before failing to qualify for the ballot, threw his hat into the ring, too, though it’s a matter of opinion whether to include him on the list.)
The field now has enough contenders to field a baseball team, along with some relief pitchers, and it might yet get even larger: Among the other Republicans who’ve expressed some public interest in the race are familiar names such as Glenn Youngkin, John Bolton, Rick Perry, Mike Rogers, Kristi Noem, Will Hurd, and maybe even Liz Cheney. In Georgia, even Brian Kemp hasn’t completely closed the door.
This isn’t the largest GOP field ever — the Republicans’ 2016 field reached 17 candidates who qualified for at least one debate — but the current crop might yet reach unprecedented heights.
In the not-too-distant past, the conventional wisdom said this field would be relatively modest. That speculation has not held up well.
As for why, exactly, there are so many candidates, there are a variety of explanations, some of which we’ve kicked around in previous election cycles.
The frontrunners just aren’t that scary. Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are the top two candidates in nearly all of the recent GOP polling, but it’s clear that the far-right duo aren’t seen as intimidating to others in the party.
Trump effectively lowered the eligibility bar. It’s part of the American ethos: Anyone can grow up to be president. In 2016, voters showed the world just how literally true that was when 63 million people voted for a television personality with no background in public service and no real interest in public policy. The takeaway for ambitious politicians couldn’t have been clearer: A big chunk of the electorate will vote for anyone, without the slightest regard for character or qualifications, so why not give it a try? There’s no real downside. If a politician doesn’t have to give up his or her current job to run for president, then there are no real incentives in place not to run. Presidential candidates, even if they don’t expect to win, get a platform for their ideas and an opportunity to raise their profiles. Former presidential candidates have routinely been able to capitalize on their failed bids with speaking opportunities, television contracts, potentially lucrative mailing lists, and the prospect of possible gigs in future administrations. Some of these folks have nothing better to do: Of the 11 aforementioned candidates, five have the word “former” in their title. With only one sitting senator and two sitting governors in the field, most of these Republicans have plenty of free time on their hands. There’s some pent-up demand. Trump prevailed in 2016, before running as an incumbent in 2020. For ambitious Republicans, that means it’s been eight years since the door was open, and if Trump wins the nomination again in the current cycle, the door will be closed until the 2028 cycle. With this in mind, the temptation to take a chance now is no doubt strong. As for who benefits from all of this, the frontrunner has reason to be pleased: The more the non-Trump vote is split, the easier it’ll be for the former president to lead the pack by wide margins. This post revises our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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