Dem
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GOP
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We're a full-service political site. Every time some weirdo who thinks he can topple Donald Trump decides to enter the Republican fray, we'll report it—once. The latest entrant in the "I'm bored so I'll run for president" sweepstakes is Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND). Burgum is in his second term as governor and the North Dakota legislature doesn't pass a lot of bills, so Burgum has too much time on his hands and nothing to do. The one thing that makes Burgum somewhat different from Asa Hutchinson, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and some others who are completely wasting their time running is that Burgum is a self-made billionaire. As a young man, he started a software company that he grew and later sold to Microsoft for $1.1 billion. So theoretically he could spend, say, $50 million in Iowa, and maybe come in fourth or fifth. Many billionaires think they could be president (think: Michael Bloomberg). It comes with the territory. The only reason Elon Musk hasn't jumped in already is that he is not a natural-born American citizen, having been born in South Africa.
Anyway, Burgum has been a successful and popular governor, but they are a dime a dozen. Burgum is planning to run in the not-Trump lane, but he is not alone there. In addition to Hutchinson and Scott, there is also Nikki Haley and perhaps soon Chris Christie and maybe Chris Sununu. It will be mighty crowded there and they can fight over the crumbs.
What all of these folks seem to miss is that we are rapidly heading back to 2016, in which half a dozen or more candidates split up the 60-70% of the anti-Trump vote and Trump comes in first in all the primaries with maybe 30% of the vote and gets all the delegates in the winner-take-all contests. The problem is that each not-Trump candidate thinks that he or she is the best one of bunch, so they fight each other, dragging each other down while Trump cruises to victory in primary after primary. We've seen this movie before and know already how it ends. (V)