Once a month, we give a run­down of the Repub­li­can field for the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial nomination.

Texas Gov­er­nor Rick Perry and for­mer New York City Mayor Rudy Giu­liani are still on the side­lines, look­ing at the game. They both have been mak­ing noises for two months with no sig­nif­i­cant movement.

Last month, there were 11 can­di­dates judged by Intrade to have bet­ter than a 1% at the nom­i­na­tion. This month, there are nine, and only five of those have declared; the other four (Perry, Giu­liani, New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Chris Christie, and for­mer Alaska Gov­er­nor Sarah Palin) have not. My best guess is that there is one Repub­li­can can­di­date who has not yet declared that we will see in the early pri­maries next year; what I can’t pre­dict is which one of the four listed here will be “it”.

I’ve gath­ered Real Clear Pol­i­tics aggre­gated poll aver­ages and July 20 Intrade prob­a­bil­i­ties for each can­di­date, rounded to the near­est whole number.

I’ll list the poten­tial Repub­li­can can­di­dates after the jump, in order of their Intrade per­cent­ages, from high­est to low­est. In each case, the polling num­bers are given in paren­the­ses after the candidate’s name, rounded to the near­est whole num­ber, fol­lowed by the change from last month:

I’ve com­piled rank-​​order list­ings from the three monthly sur­veys I’ve done, includ­ing this one. For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney holds on to first and Palin holds on to sixth. In between these slices of Won­der Bread, the meat and mayo are found in a dif­fer­ent order, or appear and dis­ap­pear. May’s #3 (Indi­ana Gov­er­nor Mitch Daniels) declined to run, and #5 Her­man Cain has dropped off the radar. Bach­mann jumped into the sand­wich last month, hav­ing climbed from #7 to #5; she moved up to #3 this month. Perry was nowhere in May but has leapt to #2 in two months.

Can­di­date May rank June rank July rank
Rom­ney 1 1 1
Perry none 4 2
Bach­mann 7 5 3
Hunts­man 4 3 4
Paw­lenty 2 2 5
Palin 6 6 6

Perry and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michele Bach­mann (R-​​Minnesota) are the big movers upward, tak­ing over the sec­ond and third place slots, respec­tively, in the Intrade rank­ings. For­mer Ambas­sador to China Jon Huntsman’s cam­paign is sput­ter­ing but not dead; he fluc­tu­ates between third and fourth. For­mer Min­nesota Gov­er­nor Tim Paw­lenty is the big loser in this list, drop­ping from sec­ond to fifth.

For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney (RCP 24% +2; In 33% 0)

Mitt Rom­ney in 2007, when Iowa looked like a good place to seek votes. Source: Politico​.com

This month’s run­down is char­ac­ter­ized by a whole lot of noth­ing. The first week of August will bring the Ames Straw Poll; for now, every­one seems to be focused on the unrav­el­ing of the Mur­doch empire, and the ongo­ing debt ceil­ing negotiations.

Mean­while, Mitt Rom­ney does what he does best.

He just keeps on truckin’.

Mean­while, Her­man Cain gave a Wash­ing­ton Times inter­view that read like a push-​​polling script. (“If you found out Mitt Rom­ney was a psy­cho­pathic axe-​​murderer, would you say you would be more or less likely to vote for him?”)

I know the South and you have to win the South. Mitt Rom­ney didn’t win the South when John McCain won the South and Mike Huck­abee won the South. And I think that the rea­son he will have a dif­fi­cult time win­ning the South is when he ran the first time he did not do a good job of com­mu­ni­cat­ing his religion.

 Texas Gov­er­nor Rick Perry (RCP 12% +8; In 29% +16)

Perry still hasn’t declared. It’s only a “moment” if you seize it. Is Rick Perry the Mitch Daniels of July?

So many mys­ter­ies and per­sis­tent rumors sur­round Perry. It’s get­ting awfully late to make a run. His “fish or cut bait” moment should be com­ing very soon. In my opin­ion, he is seri­ously over­val­ued on Intrade and should not be at a 1 in 4 chance; I’d place his odds at 1 in 10 to get the nomination.

 Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michele Bach­mann (R-​​MN) (RCP 14% +9; In 9% +1)

Bach­mann cemented her rep­u­ta­tion as the hardest-​​working Step­ford Wife in pol­i­tics. She was every­where, vot­ing against “cap, cut and bal­ance” because it didn’t go far enough, kiss­ing lla­mas, and defend­ing her husband’s fringe views on human sex­u­al­ity and mar­i­tal pol­i­tics.

 

 

 For­mer Utah Gov­er­nor, for­mer Obama Admin­is­tra­tion Ambas­sador to China, Jon Hunts­man (RCP 2% 0; In 8% –6)

Jon Hunts­man chows down.

After an ini­tial burst of energy from his can­di­dacy announce­ment, Hunts­man star has faded. His path to the nom­i­na­tion is unclear. Rom­ney is the front-​​runner; Bach­mann is the spoiler; Perry waits in the wings for a major stum­ble from one of the oth­ers; Paw­lenty is the guy who asks you to the prom at 5 pm when the dance starts at 7. Who is Jon Hunts­man? More and more, I’m begin­ning to believe that I’ve been right about Hunts­man all along. He’s run­ning for 2016, not 2012. He’s will­ing to trade his per­sonal for­tune for the expe­ri­ence of run­ning a national cam­paign, to see how things work and make his bones so that next time, when there is no incum­bent, he will be the con­sen­sus choice. If the Tea Party is either split from the GOP or dis­cred­ited, then an estab­lish­ment can­di­date like Hunts­man looks that much bet­ter five years from now.

 For­mer Min­nesota Gov­er­nor Tim Paw­lenty (RCP 4% –1; In 6% –10)

Tim Paw­lenty tries to get noticed, so he steals an Aaron Sorkin line while address­ing stu­dents at the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago:

It’s going to be the Jack Nichol­son elec­tion. Some of you are prob­a­bly too young to remem­ber the movie A Few Good Men, but there’s that famous line when he’s on the wit­ness stand and says, “You can’t han­dle the truth.” The Amer­i­can peo­ple, I think, can han­dle the truth.

Pre­dictably, this strat­egy back­fired. T-​​Paw is no Jack Nichol­son, and Aaron Sorkin doesn’t see Paw­lenty mov­ing into The West Wing.

For­mer half-​​term Alaska Gov­er­nor Sarah Palin (RCP 11% –5; In 5% 0)

Her bus tour ended ear­lier than expected, and for a month now, no one has been talk­ing about her. Her biopic, The Unde­feated, didn’t live up to its name; it has a zero per­cent rat­ing on Rot­ten Toma­toes. I heard it was a smash in Grapevine, Texas, though. Time’s Richard Corliss weighed in on the movie:

The movie may tempt even the most ardent con­ser­v­a­tives to emu­late their idol’s tenure as gov­er­nor and walk out halfway through.

Whether she can do some­thing out­ra­geous to get the public’s atten­tion is anyone’s guess. Every day that passes with­out the oxy­gen of money and atten­tion fed into her cam­paign, is another day it becomes less likely that she can secure the Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial nomination.

 Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​TX) (RCP 7% 0; In 2% 0)

Paul remains stub­bornly pop­u­lar amongst a cer­tain type of Repub­li­can voter, but his appeal hasn’t grown beyond that demographic.

 For­mer New York Mayor Rudy Giu­liani (RCP no data; In 2% 0)

Didn’t Rudy try this last-​​minute entry in 2008?

 New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Chris Christie (RCP no data; In 2%)

A sign of des­per­a­tion. Christie has made it clear that he wants no part of 2012. 2016, on the other hand…

And the Rest…

Declared can­di­dates who are now judged by Intrade investors to have between a 0.1% and 1% chance of secur­ing the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion have been dropped from the monthly run­down. They are, in order:

  • Newt Gin­grich 1.0%
  • Her­man Cain 0.7%
  • Rick San­to­rum 0.5%
  • Gary John­son 0.4%
  • Thad­deus McCot­ter 0.2%

Unde­clared can­di­dates rank­ing between 0.1% and 1% include:

  • Paul Ryan 0.4%
  • George Pataki 0.3%

Many, many unde­clared can­di­dates are scored at 0.1% by Intrade and are not listed.

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