Why are so many Republicans running for president?

Let me let you in on a secret.

(Republicans running for president/Image created by Dall E)

At first glance, the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is not much of a race.

Donald Trump is lapping the field, with an average lead of over 30 points.

And, if you expand the aperture to include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, you have two candidates accounting for about 75% of the vote share. Which, because math, leaves 25% for all of the other remaining candidates to divvy up.

And yet! We are seeing an influx of candidates into the race, with former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie expected to join the race next week and Govs. Doug Burgum (North Dakota), Chris Sununu (New Hampshire) and Glenn Youngkin (Virginia) still circling the race too.

By my count, there are 10 Republicans either in the race or about to be, with at least three more waiting in the wings.

Now, even if all of the “maybes” run, the 2024 race will still have fewer candidates than 2016 when 17 aspirants were in the contest at one point.

But, the 2016 race was FAR more wide open than the 2024 race looks to be. So, what gives? Why are so many people running in a race that looks like a foregone conclusion?

Ask a campaign that question and they will give you some milquetoast — or is it MILK TOAST — answer about how they see a clear path to victory with their candidate’s winning message and personality.

That’s not the truth, however. The truth is that there is an unspoken belief that Trump might not make it to the finish line in the race.

And that belief falls into two categories: Legal and health.

Let’s tackle the legal end first.

Trump is already under indictment in New York for alleged hush money payments made to a porn star who said the two had an affair. That case is expected to go to trial in March 2024 — right in the heart of the primary fight.

A Georgia prosecutor is looking into Trump’s pressure campaign on state elected officials to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. (Indictments are expected in that case later this summer.)

And then there is the federal probe into Trump’s retention of classified documents after leaving the White House. That investigation seemed to jump up a notch Wednesday with CNN reporting of the existence of an audio tape in which Trump acknowledges he has kept a classified document and probably shouldn’t share its contents.

That, of course, runs directly counter to the Trump team’s defense that he declassified every document he had in his possession, which is not how that process works. (“You’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified, even by thinking about it,” Trump told Fox News Sean Hannity. Er, no.)

The broader point here is that Trump faces significant legal challenges over these next months. And it’s uniquely possible that he could be indicted in three separate cases when the first votes of the 2024 race are cast in Iowa next January.

The question, of course, is whether that will slow or stop his momentum in the race.

I’ve long thought of Trump as akin to Montgomery Burns, the fictional rich guy in “The Simpsons.” There’s an episode of the show where Mr. Burns goes to the doctor and finds out he has every disease known to man. And yet he remains healthy because all of the diseases are blocking each other from inflicting damage to his body.

That’s Trump’s legal problems, at least to me. There are SO many of them that it’s hard to keep track of all of them. And, as a result, some (many?) within the Republican party sort of ignore all of them — lumping the various investigations into some sort of Deep State plot to get Trump.

The belief of the candidates not named Trump running for president in 2024 is a bit different. They see the various investigations as dark clouds hovering over the former president. Even if every one of those clouds don’t produce rain, some will. And, inevitably, Trump will get wet.

Put another way: The throw weight of the charges against him — both current and in the future — will get to a point where he will buckle under it. And then he will collapse — and his support will be up for grabs in a race with no clear frontrunner.

The other part of this whole calculation is health. We have no real sense of what sort of health Trump is in — because he never released any sort of detailed medical records — but here’s what we do know:

1. He’s overweight

2. He loves fast food

3. He spurns exercise

4. He turns 77 in less than 2 weeks

Which, when you add it up, would suggest that he is not in great health!

While no candidate wants to talk about this, there are whispers about what happens if Trump is, for some sort of health reason, unable to run in 2024. The race would be thrown wide open. And, with Joe Biden’s poll numbers where they are, the nomination would be very much worth having.

Combine the legal and health factors and you have a group of candidates all waiting to see if Trump crumbles in one way or another. None of them want to get caught flat-footed and so they are in the race to ensure that if there is a stumble or even a fall, they will be positioned to have a chance to take advantage.

That’s the dirty little secret of the 2024 Republican race. And it’s why the field keeps getting more crowded.