Candidate likeliest to win in the 2016 Republican nomination?

[Leinad]

It's really hard to tell at this point. Whoever it is, I don't think anyone has more than a 50% chance of winning--probably not even more than 40%.

Jeb!'s the establishment pick, but he just doesn't seem like a strong candidate at all.

Rubio seems like everyone's 2nd-choice, but I don't think he appeals to any specific base enough to become a consensus 1st-choice before it's too late, unless he can wrestle the establishment away from his fellow Floridian Bush.

I had Walker pegged as the favorite a couple months ago, but he's unimpressed since his announcement.

Cruz could certainly bring in support from social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, national security conservatives, and general anti-establishment people, but it would be hard to get all of them to coalesce behind him (over Carson, Huckabee, Walker, and yeah, Trump) soon enough to jump ahead in the polls. Great fundraising, though.

Trump might be the favorite. Seriously. I tend to think that the establishment will coalesce behind their guy and conservatives will find an actual conservative (it's not Trump) to coalesce behind, and Trump will fall to 3rd before he can run away with the delegates. But if he doesn't implode from now until the voting starts, he actually might be able to get a sizable delegate lead before any of this happens and ride that momentum to the nomination.