Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker may be getting the Republican presidential buzz, but he’s hardly a strong frontrunner. In fact, say experts surveyed by Politico, he’s really not a frontrunner.
No one is.
“Most Iowa insiders believe Scott Walker would win their state’s caucuses if they were this week,” Politico’s James Hohmann found after the magazine surveyed 100 insiders in New Hampshire and Iowa, the nation’s first big presidential nomination contests.
But the caucuses are about a year away, he noted, and “virtually none of the most influential thought leaders in the Hawkeye State believe that the Wisconsin governor will sustain his recent bounce in polls.”
Walker began to soar among insiders with his January 24 speech to Iowa Republican activists at the Iowa Freedom Forum. Since then, he and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have topped most polls, though barely.
“There’s widespread agreement that the GOP field really is wide open,” Politico found. “In New Hampshire, the feeling is that Jeb Bush would win the first-in-the-nation primary if it was this week but that it’s premature to call him a frontrunner.”
They simply haven’t been tested as presidential candidates, and for that matter, have not formally said they’re running.
That’s why, Politico found, “Most Republican insiders answered no when asked if there’s a GOP frontrunner.”