Miami GOP Mayor Francis Suarez has filed paperwork to run for president, according to new FEC filings, marking the long-shot candidate’s formal entry to the race.
What, exactly, is the gameplan here? Trump, even after his SECOND indictment, is still 40 points ahead of Ron DeSantis. Fuck, even RFK Jr has better poll numbers than the entirety of the GOP field excluding Trump.
Scenario #1: GOP contenders believe that Trump's legal troubles will be his undoing before the 2024 Republican convention. DeSantis will be sunk by similar legal troubles, or lack of electability outside of Florida. Despite current polling, the field will look very different by early 2024 and they want to position themselves now as the alternatives who aren't going to prison.
Scenario #2: Trump and/or DeSantis avoid their many scandals, somehow, and they're going to be looking for a vice president. It's unlikely that Trump will run with Pence again, so Nikki Haley, Francis Suarez, and the rest are looking to distinguish themselves as vote-getters so they will be seen as a good addition to a Trump or DeSantis ticket.
Either way, I don't know what the hell Pence thinks he's doing in this field.
Pence is a religious zealot, and I think he believes God is calling him to run, so he doesn't care what the polls or common sense seem to say. He believes that somehow God's plan will work out. We'll see how that goes for him...