Joe Walsh – my 130/1 longshot for the Republican nomination
Could Trump face a challenge?
Generally speaking incumbent presidents tend not to have to face a serious primary challenge when they run for a second term. Certainly that’s been the assumption with Donald Trump and until now the possibility of other challengers has not appeared.
That is changing with a prominent former Republican congressman and now a right wing radio host, Joe Walsh, saying that he is seriously considering running against the President.
One of the unique features of the last two-and-a-half years has been how silent the Republican party has been over the antics of the occupant of the White House. There’s been very little criticism even of his extreme actions.
We are now just over a year off the next presidential election and the mood in the party might change. So the suggestion by Joe Walsh that he is considering throwing his hat into the ring needs to be taken seriously. From what I’ve seen of the interviews he did yesterday he comes over as a firy and lucid critic of Trump.
The trigger for him is his view of Trump came with how the president approached his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki 18 months ago. At the time I thought it was extraordinary how the Republican party establishment did not express any real concern about the apparent acquiescence of the president when dealing with the Russian leader. The optics were terrible.
If Walsh does decide to give it a go then his betting odds will tighten sharply. Effectively he hasn’t got long to decide because of the need to be in a position to file quite soon in order to get on the primary ballots in the early voting States.
I think that Trump would find Walsh a very difficult to deal with.
Walsh only appeared as a possible runner on Betfair yesterday and most of the money that has been wagered on him for the nomination at the moment has come from me.